Daily Doublesteins

Ch-Ch-Changes

2009-02-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking for a while now about making some changes to this blog for lots of different reasons. For one thing, I've always felt like there would come a time when it would become inappropriate for me to write about the girls using their real names. That time isn't exactly now, since neither of them is even technically in school, but I think that cut-off was always around age five or so, in my head. Once they're in "real" school, I think they may deserve a little more anonymity as relates to time-outs, mishaps, and embarrassing moments. Just today, I filled out Annie's registration paperwork for next year, so that time is mere months away.

Pushing the deadline forward is the fact that Jason's practice is about to launch a fancy new website in the next month or so, and the last thing I want is for a potential patient to Google his name and inadvertently find my blog (and lots of details about the most recent neighborhood party, vacation, or date night). Plus, I'm spending a little more time and energy submitting query letters to get new freelance work. If any of those pan out, and I am ever actually published (I should be so lucky!), I'd like to be able to reference my blog without giving away too many real-life details for security purposes.

So! I'm taking the weekend off to be up north with the family, and when I return, look for the launch of something new and improved to record all our daily details. I'll avoid using our last name at all, and I'll also probably just reference the girls by their first initial. I'm planning to add new links to all the blogs I currently read regularly (both people I know and people I don't) and possibly links to some of the writing I've done other places. The blog doesn't have a name yet; while I do have a few ideas, I'm open to your thoughts, so either comment here or send them to me via e-mail.

If you are a faithful reader and want to keep reading at the new site, send me an e-mail at sdoublestein@hotmail.com and I'll give you a heads-up when I get it all together. (There won't be any references here to the new name.) RIP, Daily Doublesteins! It's been a lovely adventure.

Bird

2009-02-17T17:12:00.000-08:00

Annie hasn't had school this week, so we've been blessed and cursed by the lack of a schedule. Yesterday, we hung out in jammies and had a morning "picnic" with all the dolls, then teamed up for a whirlwind Target trip, where we bought this summer's sprinkler pool (version 1.2, as it is the same one we had in 2007), cousin birthday presents, True North almond clusters (yum!), and a new Belle figurine, since the original one's head has broken off and spends all her time "at the hospital," being waited on and feted by all the other princesses in their sparkly ball gowns. Fun stuff! The afternoon, though, was a Category Five disaster that culminated in my tearful phone call to Jason at 5:05 p.m. to tell him that no dinner would be forthcoming upon his arrival home from work due to my inability to do anything but carry a fussy two-year-old in my arms post-nap and give a Very Naughty Four-Year-Old time-outs (both in her room and STRAPPED INTO HER CARSEAT IN THE CAR I WON'T LIE) for the previous hour and a half. (NOT fun stuff!)

Add to this the fact that Jemma and I had simultaneous, mysterious fevers on Sunday and Monday, and we were cheered and relieved to feel better and get out of the house this morning. We headed to the gym, where, because of other people's schools being on Winter Break, there were a lot of kids and a lot going on. I checked the girls in and headed up to the treadmill, choosing one where I can look down on the kids playing in the gym and they can wave up at me. They were happy enough at first, gathered with Lucy and Ava and Lila and ten or so more little girls, all running around and giggling and then playing Duck, Duck, Goose. They waved, I waved, everyone was fine.

Then. Then! From the other side of the gym came the mascot for the Grand Rapids Griffins, who had been entertaining the many school-aged boys as they played broom hockey. I saw him ambling clumsily towards the little kids, and I thought, some poor little kid is going to freak out about this. I was right. It was Jemma.

I watched as, in response to his cheery wave, her little face crumpled, turned bright red, and she began crying hysterically. A kind woman scooped her up and hurried away, back into the non-gym area, presumably to distract her with some dolls or books or bubbles.

By the time I made my way back down to get her, she was just standing by the gate to get out, not crying, but wearing a sad little look on her cute little face. "Bird!" she said, when I scooped her out and waited for Annie to come. "Bird here," she pointed, and she started crying again. Only the promise of vanilla milk at the coffee shop calmed her down, and by the time we had washed hands and put coats on, she was better again.

Tonight, though, as I rocked her in her room and read her books, she kept hugging me tightly and asking about "bird." Over and over, I reassured her that the bird was just silly, was all gone, was at home now, that just Mommy and Daddy and Annie and Jemma were here together. Poor. Little. Thing. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, I'm going to have to break all my usual Sleep Rules and spend any amount of time in there, rocking my little Roo, reassuring her that the bird is All Gone.

Assigning the Blame

2009-02-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

When I went in Annie's room after rest time on Thursday afternoon, something smelled like Hershey's chocolate.

"Did you put on your M&M chapstick?" I asked.

"No," she said. Hmmmm.

Then, we went to the pool. When we got home from the pool, I went into Annie's room again to stop her from jumping on the bed (a daily battle). It still smelled like chocolate.

"Annie, are you wearing chapstick?" I asked again. We keep said chapstick in a drawer in the kitchen, and I wanted to make sure she hadn't squirreled it away to her bedroom where it might possibly be found (and abused) by Jemma.

"NOOO, Mom!"

"Well, then why does it smell like your M&M chapstick in here?" I said.

Annie looked sheepish. "I broke my pink basket that my books are in during rest time and it needed glue but I didn't know where the glue was so I thought chapstick would work so I got it and put it on the basket but it didn't work."

I looked at the basket, and, sure enough, a corner of the pink wicker had broken and was dangling off, covered in a light brown slime that smelled like chocolate.

I tried not to, but I smiled.

"Where is the chapstick now?" I asked.

"I put it back in the drawer after rest time was over."

Let us assign the blame for this silly little episode:

30% - to Annie, for standing on her wicker book basket, breaking it, and then deciding to fix it with chapstick

30% - to me, for keeping the chapstick in an accessible place in the house

30% - to me, for wasting time upstairs on facebook during rest time, so as not to hear my child rummaging around in the kitchen for chapstick

10% - to Connie, for providing the M&M chapstick to my child as part of a Thanksgiving goody bag

Behavior Modification

2009-02-12T17:48:00.000-08:00

A few months back, at the height of my despair over Annie's increasingly difficult behavior, I bought and read the book Parenting with Love and Logic. I didn't buy into it 100%, but I did appreciate the perspective, and it's given me a couple great new tools for dealing with dramatic discipline situations. One thing the book really points out is that, as parents, we can't actually control certain behaviors (tantrums, language, whining, etc.) but we can control where they occur. For example, if Annie were following me around the kitchen whining about something, instead of saying to her, "Annie, stop whining" (which is unenforceable), I'd say, "Annie, you may either stay in the kitchen with me nicely or go whine by yourself in your bedroom." If she were refusing to go to her room for a time-out, instead of repeatedly telling her to go, I'd ask, "Would you like to go by yourself or would you like me to take you?" It's all about choices, both of which you would find acceptable.

Maybe it's the consistency we've shown over the last six months or so, maybe it's the fact that Annie is almost closer to five than four now (!), but in any case, her behavior has really improved. For her part, Annie has not only responded well to the "choice" scenarios, but she is now beginning to use them on me. A few interesting "choices" she presented me today:

This morning, at breakfast, when she had repeatedly asked, and repeatedly been denied, watching Curious George before dance class and told the issue was closed for discussion, she calmly set her fork down, stopped eating her waffle, and said, "Mom, would you like to let me watch Curious George or would you like me and Jemma to go jump on my bed?" Smile. (Cue Jason cracking up from the kitchen.)

This afternoon, when I told her that the living room was not a good place for her to be doing any type of gymnastics, she said, "Mom, I can either do a handstand in the living room or I can tip over the TV. Which do you choose?"

Can't blame a girl for trying, I guess. I have a feeling I'll be getting the opportunity to make more "choices" in the days ahead. I'll keep you posted.

Because I am Two Years Old.

2009-02-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

Sarah and I took Annie and Lucy to the ballet on Sunday afternoon. I discovered this sweet dance company in town that puts on three performances a year specifically geared to young kids and families. They're an hour long and they're all based on stories that kids know. Annie and I had gone to Twas the Night Before Christmas back in December, and this time we invited some girlfriends to see Peter and the Wolf. This is not a story I knew, but I figured: children's ballet, fairy tale, what's not to like?

So we're sitting there in our lovely fifth-row seats before the piece begins, and announcer-voice behind the curtain begins explaining how, in Peter and the Wolf, each character is represented by an instrument. There's the duck, who gets horns; and the bird, who is the flute . . . and the HUNTERS WITH RIFLES, who are drums. "Oh boy," mutters Sarah. The lights go down and all is well with the bird and Peter prancing around the meadow until the wolf comes out. I glance to my right and see Annie glaring at the wolf with her meanest look while Lucy is covering her eyes with her hands and peeking through her fingers. Sarah and I were cracking up but also secretly hoping that there was some sort of non-violent, happy ending coming our way. (There was: the hunters help Peter bring the wolf back to the zoo, while the duck miraculously survives being eaten, is magically regurgitated, and shakes hands with the wolf. Ha!)

Afterwards, I had two main thoughts. One, perhaps I should be doing a bit more research before carting my children off to performances I have never seen before; two, I was giving ten-to-one odds that Annie would be waking up in the middle of the night, crying, claiming that there was a wolf in her room.

Surprisingly, she didn't. But guess what? If she had, I probably wouldn't have heard her. That's because I've started sleeping with a sound machine next to the bed. That's right. The little $20 machine I bought last-minute at Bed Bath and Beyond to bring to Florida has found a new home in my room, and the "rain" sound has given me the most consecutive nights of good sleep in my own bed with my husband since summer 2004. And sometimes I worry that the girls might wake up and cry out for me and I might not hear them, now that I'm actually ASLEEP. And then I think, hey, it's been FIVE STRAIGHT YEARS since I could count on a good night's sleep, so I guess if something is that wrong, they can come and get me, or, in Jemma's case, yell good and loud until Jason wakes up.

While I'm admitting to being a toddler with my needs-sound-machine-to-sleep, let me just also say that I've been eating a lot of PB&J's on white bread, lately, that I'm on the hunt for some cute rainboots for spring, and that I'm starting to get excited about next winter's possible trip to Disney. The truth is out: I'm not thirty-one, I'm two, or three, or four. And I love to sleep during the rainstorm.

How Was Florida?

2009-02-07T18:12:00.001-08:00

I've been asked this question at least five times since we returned a mere twenty-four hours ago. My answer, in one word, would be: Cold. Florida was cold, as in, record-low temperatures, scrape windshields off, 25-30 mph winds, wear every layer you brought and the same brown sweater every day kind of cold. So.

In more than one word, though, my answer would be different. Maybe it wasn't exactly the vacation we'd hoped for, but it wasn't a total loss, either. For one, the girls did spectacularly well on the travel days, which involved three hours in the car plus three hours in the air punctuated by an hour or two here and there of just waiting around. They were amazing (and the old people all around us on the airplane let us know it), and we wouldn't hesitate to fly with them again.

Despite the chilly weather, Annie was in heaven the whole time. It's the magic of Florida, I guess. She practically skipped her way through every day, happy to be gathering shells on the beach, playing at the park we frequented, watching a movie in the early morning, eating ice cream, doing a puzzle with Grandma, dangling her feet in the hot tub, or swimming in the pool. You know, because even though it was freezing outside, it was still sunny, and the pool was still heated, so in it Annie went every day with her purple swimmies and a big smile. (Getting out was a sad, cold event.) Gone was the whiny, tantrummy little girl of January; in her place, an agreeable, curious, affectionate person. I think she was just hungry for some sunshine and some grandparent love. She got plenty of both.

Jemma, on the other hand, might not be the traveler in the family. She never threw up again (praise Jesus! Hands raised above head, swaying from side to side with organ music in background, etc.), but she seemed a little shell-shocked and confused for the first few days. Every time we were all in the minivan together, she'd point from her position in the back row and say, "Different grandma. Other grandma. Both grandmas!" like she couldn't understand why both sets of them were here together. She pooped once the whole time we were there. At night when I'd tuck her in, she'd say heartbreaking little things like, "Rocking chair?" or "Own crib" and "Own house." (Also at night once, we read a paperback copy of Goodnight Moon I'd brought along that has a black-and-white picture of illustrator Clement C. Hurd on the back cover. Jemma saw him - an older, balding white man - and started saying something I couldn't understand. "What?" I asked, over and over. I finally understood her: "Barack Obama." "Barack Obama??" I asked. She nodded and pointed at the picture. "What about him?" "On TV." Ooooohkaaaay.)

We learned the hard way that the girls still can't share a bedroom, even with a crib and a noise machine, so after one night of two hours sleep and playing musical beds, we let Annie fall asleep in our bed at night and then moved her to the pull-out couch when we went to bed. Jemma, in her PLG rental crib, hogged the entire other bedroom with two empty twin beds.

We ate dinner at The Mucky Duck on Captiva Island as a group, and Jason and I escaped for a dinner out at Mezzaluna one night, too. We watched the sun rise in the morning and had mojitos and strawberry daquiris in the afternoon for happy hour. We sat in the hot tub a lot. We played cards and read books and magazines and did crossword puzzles. We tried to enjoy (but probably still took for granted) the fact that we were there with both sets of our parents and both our children. We build sandcastles and collected shells to bring home. We reminded ourselves how great it was not to struggle with boots, snowpants, and mittens every time we went outside.

I won't lie, I feel a little bit cheated out of my long-awaited winter getaway. I wanted to be warm; I wanted to be HOT. I wanted the girls to swim and swim and splash and run and roll in the sand and sit in the waves. Still, I know we're lucky to have gone at all, I know we'll always have these specific memories of our first true family vacation, and I know we'll have lots more chances to be together someplace warm and sunny.

Jemma in Florida

2009-02-07T13:52:00.001-08:00

Annie in Florida

2009-02-07T13:43:00.001-08:00

Backup Plans

2009-01-31T16:06:00.000-08:00

In the midst of packing my brains out for a week in Florida with kids and both sets of grandparents plus getting through another winter weekend, Jemma threw up in the middle of the night last night, right on schedule. See, exactly (exactly! To the day!) one year ago, Annie did the exact same thing, just as Jason and I were preparing to take our first trip away since Jemma had been born thirteen months earlier. Also last February, Annie and Jemma both got sick while Jason and I were on a Chicago getaway weekend, infecting my parents and Jason and myself when we returned. Apparently our children, who are mainly healthy except for the occasional cold/extended cough here and there, must vomit in the 48 hours immediately preceeding any planned vacation in the winter. Ah, winter. Damn you. I try to outsmart you by taking trips to warm places, and then you thwart me by cursing my house with the stomach flu and arranging record-low temperatures for Florida just especially for the five days we'll be there.

Positive attitude! I know!

I've spent the hours since 3:30 this morning alternately in denial ("She's fine. It's just one random puke. The rest of us are fine. We've had it already before.") and in a rage of fury ("This is absurd. We're canceling the whole thing. It's going to pass from person to person and infect us all. Someone is bound to be puking on the plane. The trip is ruined.") about these circumstances. After many sleepless hours (and a few hours of following Jemma around the house, sort of waiting for her to puke on something expensive or irreplaceable, like the wool area rug or our bedroom carpet . . .), I've settled into someplace in the middle. I'm still highly annoyed, but trying to forge forward and have hope that we will salvage the trip and enjoy a reasonably fun, healthy week. If one of us isn't feeling our best for a day or two, at least there will be plenty of help from the grandparents while we recuperate. If the temperatures aren't going to be in the 80's, at least we should be able to play at a park, run on the beach, and get ice cream. At least, at least, we won't be stuck in our house looking out at the never-ending snow.

So we're getting on a plane tomorrow with two carry-ons full of plastic bags and changes of clothes, two bags full of clothes for all possible temperatures, and two girls who hopefully will watch movies and suck on suckers the whole way to a balmy, sunshiney place. Wish us luck.

January Sunshine

2009-01-29T10:16:00.001-08:00

Some days I can hardly speak through my clenched teeth when Jason comes home, so sapped am I of all normal social impulses. Some days, especially the winter ones, are hellish, and I think, Note to Self: You Cannot Handle More Children. Some days, I am near tears on the couch and feel like a bad, mean, impatient mom in spite of all the things I know I do well.

Then there are days like yesterday. It was like someone had written a semi-cheesy script for a show called "Resilient and Enthusiastic Mom Makes Winter Day Fun for Adorable and Funny Children" and we excelled at acting it out. I'm not sure if it's because I snuck in an early-morning run, or because my coffee was especially good, or that the sun was shining, or that Annie had such a great day at school, but the whole day, start to finish, was amazingly good. I splurged on a spontaneous lunch at Marie Catrib's after picking Annie up from school. The girls were perfect at the restaurant, loving their PB&Js while I inhaled my Adult's Grilled Cheese (cream cheese, goat cheese, feta, tomatoes, fresh basil . . . YUM). We came home and I finished a great book while the girls both napped. We played dollhouse, we played daycare, we built gigantic towers out of blocks, we colored with crayons, we danced to The White Stripes, we made homemade pizzas and ate them in the kitchen. Suddenly, it was 6:30 and I hadn't once bemoaned our trapped-inside status, even in my mind.

After baths, I was brushing Annie's hair on the couch. Jemma came running down the hallway in her purple jammies, all excited about something. She stopped, stood next to the fireplace, and said, "I love you, Annie!" for no reason at all. Annie gave me a knowing smile and said, "I realized that she really does love me, Mom." Jemma wasn't done. "I love you TOO!" she repeated, still talking to Annie. Kissing and hugging of movie-like proportions followed, and we ended the night by reading five or six books together in my bed, feeling glad and grateful to have each other.

Hey Jemma

2009-01-27T19:16:00.000-08:00

Now that she's two, I'm no longer going to commit to writing something Jemma-specific on the 27th of each month. But today, happy coincidence, it is the 27th, so to mark her 25th month, I wanted to note that she now has two favorite songs. Happy coincidence number two, they both start with the word, "Hey," as in, "Hey Mickey" and "Hey Jude." You can imagine how thrilled Jason is with both of these choices, one being by an obscure late 80's/early 90's pop group, the other by his favorite group of all time. You can even probably imagine that Jason has forced or cajoled her into liking these songs, but no. She actually loves them, requests them constantly, laughs when they are on, sings along, and dances around when we play them. She loves them so much that if by chance we are in the car and unable to produce said songs, she cries.

On Sunday night, we were driving home from my parents' and Jemma began requesting "Hey Jude, Ah Nah Nah" (because what she really likes is the sing-songy ending). We didn't have the CD with us, nor Jason's iPod, and hysterics ensued. Until! Miracle! Some radio station was playing a full Beatles montage to promote the tribute band that's at DeVos this week and Hey Jude was the very next song they played. All was well in the white Subaru wagon on I-96 after that.

Street Cred

2009-01-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

I spent the first half of today paying for all the fun I had last night. Food was prepared, drinks were consumed (six? seven? six?), stories were told, pictures taken. One thing led to another (that's how a progressive dinner is supposed to work, right?) and suddenly it was almost midnight. After sweeping me home just before the stroke of twelve, my Prince Charming didn't so much whisk me off to my fairytale dreamland as much as pass out on the couch, fully clothed, lights on, TV on, and sleep there until 6:00 this morning. So romantic . . .

More than once last night, conversation turned to the luck that led each one of our families to buy a house on this street. Nobody knew, going in, what kind of neighborhood it would be. We fell in love with a specific house, or maybe a location here in the "epicenter" (as Patrick likes to call it) of our town, and then later, after we'd moved in and unpacked boxes, we met these funny, lovely, generous, down-to-earth people. Now, at each event (and there are many throughout the year), we joke about taking our Love Of The Street to new and ridiculous levels. In the realm of fantasy, there has been talk of buying up one house on the block, razing it, and putting in a neighborhood pool. We've daydreamed about constructing a float to enter in the EGR 4th of July parade, though only one or two people in the group could even muster up the construction knowledge necessary for that. We throw out all sorts of possible future events - the O Avenue Prom, The W. T. party, having a band come play in the middle of the street in the summer. We can't help it; we like to dream big.

One idea that keeps coming back is having T-shirts printed up for everyone with our street name. Of course, we'd need some sort of catchy slogan to promote our street, and the only one that has been oft-repeated is "Not a Thru Street." As I nursed my headache and stomachache this morning, I came up with a couple more: "Not a Good Influence," and "Where the Grown-Ups are Naughtier Than the Kids." Thoughts, neighbors? And cheers, too, to another riot of an evening.

5:00 on a Saturday

2009-01-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

It's still, everlastingly, January. We've been doing what we can to get through the drearyness of winter: mixing up routine with trips to the pool, jaunts out to restaurants, yoga workshops, a few outdoor adventures when the temperature climbs above twenty degrees. But there have been plenty of days, especially on weekends, when it's 5:00 and Jason and I have basically been inside this house with the girls all day long, taking turns entertaining. We look at each other, wonder what to rustle up for dinner, and roll our eyes at whatever drama is taking place inside these four walls.

It's occurred to me, on those days, that now, after nearly ten years of marriage, I would probably still not say that I'm "married to my best friend." That honor goes to someone else. I would say, though, that I feel luckier and luckier to have cast my lot with someone who is really in this with me, who bouys my spirits when I have had enough of the gray skies and toddler tantrums, whose eyes I still want to meet across that dinner table over the chicken nuggets. Because if I had to do this all by myself, it would be a hundred times harder and less satisfying.

Tonight, as we round the girls up for an early dinner and get ourselves ready for our annual neighborhood progressive dinner, I am feeling grateful for my kind, happy husband.

Traveling With a Teenager

2009-01-22T10:44:00.001-08:00

For six days now (not that anyone's counting), Annie's been acting like a teenager with PMS. She spends 90% of her time pouting, whining, or crying about the most minute details of her life and has actually stomped to her room and slammed the door, teenage-style, several times. (Perhaps she's listening to some Tori Amos in there, maybe reading some Sylvia Plath . . . I don't know.) No matter what food I set down in front of her, unless it is PB&J, she nearly cries. Last night she was whimpering while eating an apple and I launched into the "Starving Children in Africa" lecture. Her response? "You're talking mean to me and that makes me sad." Today after dance, I had to run an errand to Art of the Table. Afterwards, we went next door to Wealthy Street Bakery, where I let the girls each choose a treat and thought we'd have a fun, lunch-ruining snack together. Annie chose a cinnamon roll, then spent the next 15 minutes whining that she "didn't like the frosting" and "wanted something else" and asking "When can we go home?" And when we are home, she spends all her time tormenting Jemma, lecturing me on the specific hair clip she needs (complete with finger-pointing and phrases like, "For the LAST time, I'm telling you . . . ), and changing her clothes over and over, refusing to pick up the ones she's discarded.

I had been looking forward to our Florida trip so much these past few days and weeks of freakishly cold weather. I've had visions of all of us playing in the pool, finding shells on the beach, lazing around eating whatever we want, whenever we feel like it. I thought that having both sets of grandparents along would be perfect: six adults + two children = lots of time for Jason and Stephanie to enjoy their kids while other people cook and clean up. I thought we'd be able to snatch an hour or two here and there to read a magazine in peace or run on the beach while Grandma or Grandpa entertained. I thought we'd all have fun together, grilling dinner and splashing around and building sandcastles.

These past six days, a small current of fear has begun to wind through that river of excitment. What if, instead of a fun group of eight, we become a captive audience for Annie's dramatics? Meals ruined, time-outs enforced, happiness strained while I try to turn her around and all four grandparents secretly think that what she really needs is a good, hard spanking.

I got a suitcase out, just one, and I'm trying to pack a little each day. Whenever something occurs to me, I throw it in there, wily-nily, and plan to separate everything into appropriate suitcases later. Yesterday afternoon, the girls took turns wheeling the suitcase up and down the hallway, pretending to sit on the airplane, Annie instructing never-flown-before Jemma on how it will be. I want to ask, how will it be, Annie? Are you going to try to ruin it for everyone? Sometimes I feel sorry for her, that at four years old she can even be so unhappy, so tormented by her daily life. I worry that she is depressed or sick or . . . something. Sometimes, I can laugh about it with Jason or on the phone with friends and believe that it's a phase that will pass. But now, after six days of almost non-stop drama, I mostly feel mad that she's turning the tenor of our house towards unhappiness. I'm not ready for this, yet, for her to be a teenager with all the emotional baggage that comes along. I want my happy, sunny, spunky four-year-old back, please.

A Day in the Life

2009-01-21T06:39:00.000-08:00

All Mixed Up

2009-01-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

First things first: after a ridiculous number of months when I wavered back and forth between wanting a new, fancy digital camera (saving for later) and wanting a new, non-fancy digital camera (getting it now), Jason got me a non-fancy digital camera for Christmas. And I love it. It's a Canon Powershot Elph - tiny, chocolate brown, and fantastic. It shoots movie clips. It let me shoot in black and white. It hold billions of photos (well, almost) and fits into my pocket. I've been playing with it all weekend.

Other than that, we're a little messed up right now. In a desperate attempt to bring back that winter coziness we felt earlier this season, we actually listened to Christmas music in the car yesterday afternoon. I mean, the temperature has been hovering around zero for days, the snow shows no signs of stopping, so why not pretend it's still Christmas? The girls loved it. Then, today, Jason and I alternated between trying to inject some indoor fun into our kids (board games, movie time, art projects) and turning to one another and saying, "Let's just get drunk" and eating some leftover Halloween candy we dug up from the basement in Operation Mouse Outsmarting, Part Two. And after a day or so of Annie moping around, complaining of her tummy hurting, and not eating much of anything, it finally occurred to me to take her temperature. 100.7. Jemma's? 100.6.

Now, they're on the couch downstairs, watching movies and being coddled with all manner of Tylenol and clear beverages. I have a feeling it's going to be a long, cold week. I have a feeling I'm going to be more dependent than usual on my coffee.

Thursday Night Magic

2009-01-17T08:44:00.000-08:00

We took the girls to Marie Catrib's for dessert on Thursday night,
everyone bundled in forty layers
to brave the sub-zero temperatures.
Inside, people talked in corners,
cooks clanged pots together,
waitresses carried trays full of steaming soup.

We led the girls over to the dessert case:
chocolate pudding, bread pudding, cookies, pumpkin pot au creme, chocolate cake, coconut cake, brownies.
They stood, puffy in their boots and coats,
their noses pressed against the glass, their eyes wide.
"I want pudding," said Annie.
"Me! Chocolate!" yelled Jemma.
We chose our treats, then sat down at a table for four,
shedding our layers. We waited.
We watched the waiter bring our choices, set them down one by one, give us extra napkins.
We took slow, small bites.
We shared.

Marie dandled a baby on her hip, spied us, came over to say hello.
"Baby Andrew!" she introduced. The baby smiled uncertainly.
"Your chocolate pudding is the best," said Jason. Marie nodded.
"Yes," she said.
"How do you make it?" Jason persisted.
"Magic."
We all fought
a little
over the last bite
then put our layers back on,
clomped to the car
with a little magic in our tummies.

Mouse: No Longer in the House

2009-01-15T16:42:00.000-08:00

Kitchen, 7:00 a.m

We awake this morning, check the mouse trap, and find it empty (a little of the peanut butter licked off . . . eeeewwww). Jason and I exchange glances and keep our eyes wide open all through breakfast.

Hallway, 8:00 a.m.

I'm putting on make-up in the bathroom. The girls are changing into dress-up outfits in the playroom, then running down the hallway to see themselves in the mirror. They do this over and over, switching outfits each time.

I am putting mascara on when I hear Annie scream, "MommEEEEE!!! Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy there's something IN HERE!!!!!" and Jason emerges from a bedroom just in time to see the mouse streak past the girls, right down the length of the hallway, and head for the kitchen.

We look at Annie, who has climbed my legs. We look at each other. We have nothing.

"It was a mouse," says Jason. She screams in my left ear. I take the girls to Annie's bedroom and spin elaborate, light-hearted stories about the poor mouse getting separated from his family, how he must have gotten lost inside our house, how daddy will set a trap to catch the mouse so we can put him back outside where he belongs. Jason sets the trap and leaves it on the kitchen counter. I am sure we will be paying for years of therapy and answering questions for days about where the mouse is.

Kitchen, 8:45 a.m.

I am going through the house, picking things up and returning them to their rightful place in preparation for Annie's playdate coming over after dance class ("Hi Grace and Grace's mom, welcome to our house for the very first time ever; don't mind the mousetrap on the kitchen counter!"). I'm turning from the playroom to go back down the hallway when I hear a simultaneous scream and Snap! from the kitchen. Annie and Jemma had just wandered in, finally braving that room in the house, just in time to see the mouse be caught in the trap. More screaming, obviously, and I finally take them upstairs while Jason gets rid of the evidence.

Rest of the day

Annie functions normally, except that she refuses to be alone in any room "because the mouse is in there" no matter how many times I explain that we caught the mouse and put it back outside (which is technically true because the trap went into the garbage bin, which is outside). So every time she has to pee, I go in the bathroom with her. Every time she needs something from her room, I go with her. During rest time, she called me two times to "give me a kiss and a hug and make sure the mouse isn't in here." Bless her heart; she's going to worry about this for a long time. I'm actually shocked that she's in bed right now. I kind of thought I was going to have to sleep with her tonight.

As for us, we set another trap because, really, what are the odds that it was Just One Mouse? We're waiting for his family to show up, so that we can "put them back outside."

"Inside my house, there was a mouse . . ."

2009-01-14T17:29:00.000-08:00

from the book Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse by Lindsay Barrett George

We have this book. I've read it to Annie a hundred times, complete with cutesy rhyming stanzas and fun illustrations. At the end of the book, the inside mouse and the outside mouse crawl up to opposite sides of the same window, raise their little claws, and say, "Hello."

When a very large mouse scampered from my sink across my kitchen counter and jumped behind my oven this afternoon, I did not say, "Hello." I did the following things:

1. Thanked God that the girls were happily and obliviously drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows at the dining room table (and, subsequently, imagined the hell that would have ensued for weeks - months! - if Annie had seen this occur).

2. Called my parents to inform them we'd be coming for dinner.

3. Called Jason and left him a semi-dramatic message on his cell phone about the importance of getting mouse traps on the way home.

4. Packed a bag, all while darting furtive glances at my oven and plotting the nearest counter to jump on.

5. Left my house, not to return until Jason was home from work at 7:30.

I am not usually this much of a wimp (as my mom helpfully pointed out to me, "It's a mouse, not a snake"), but something about knowing exactly where it was and knowing it was bold enough to romp across my counter in broad daylight made me think I might not be comfortable here for the rest of the afternoon. It was actually a nice excuse to spend dinnertime with my parents. Annie regaled them with newly-learned facts about arctic animals (Blubber! Penguins!), we got a free dinner out of the deal, and I arrived home just in time to pop them in bed, all worn out from a lot of Polly Pocket and vintage Cabbage Patch Kids action.

On our way home, we passed the hospital. As usual, Jemma shouts out, "Hospital! Me born!" and Annie is prompted to give a long, hopeful speech about how many babies are being born there Right This Second. Tonight she said, "I know how a baby gets in your tummy. They sew your tummy open (?), and then put all the little pieces of the baby in there, and then they sew your tummy back up, and then all the little pieces grow together until it's a baby! Then it comes out. When I'm a grown-up, that will happen to me."

Annie is Thankful

2009-01-13T15:13:00.001-08:00

Annie volunteered to pray tonight before dinner. Here is what she said:

Dear God,

Thank you, God, for our house.

Thank you for ice-skating.

Thank you for letting us go to friends' houses.

Amen.

Stir-Crazy

2009-01-11T17:30:00.000-08:00

"I'm going to go live at the OLD HOUSE. I need to be BY MYSELF." She'd be all set there, with her backpack full of books, Dinah, and her plucky teenage attitude . . . .

I spent the weekend writing love poems to my dishwasher, helping at Annie's Sunday School class, running at the gym (go home, New Year's resolution people making the gym crazy), driving with Connie to Rivertown Crossings on the most pointless (but stil fun) mall trip ever (purchased: one frozen Coke), drinking wine and eating take-out by the fire with my husband (yes, it WAS kind of romantic), reading the same five board books to Jemma over and over, watching the movie In Bruges,

and rounding up the family for an afternoon of Watercolor 101.

Domestic Bliss, Your Name is Bosch

2009-01-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

So it's 7:30 p.m. on Friday night and I'm settling in with a cup of tea and the instruction manual for my new dishwasher. It's a total party over here.

What it really is, I guess, is the logical end to a day that included my irrational emotional breakdown and a few minutes of nonsense crying in our bedroom closet; a chatty Sears deliveryman who apparently had nothing else to do all day but install our dishwasher and show us lots of pictures of his grandchildren; Annie hiding from me (again) at preschool pickup; Jason and I practically jumping for joy in our kitchen this afternoon, holding a hot-from-the-dishwasher plate, yelling, "It's clean! It's really clean!" The highlight of my day was a walk to the grocery store. For bread. (And possibly the croque monsieur sandwiches I made with it.)

I'm tired of the snow, the mealtime drama from Annie, the cooped-up feeling that everyone in our family has now that winter has been around for a while. It's starting to feel like Narnia over here: always winter, never Christmas.

I'm trying to bolster myself with positive thoughts about Florida (we leave February 1), but all that is leading to, so far, is some unnecessary anxiety about packing and logistics. I'm trying to keep it all in perspective, especially after reading (gulping down, more like) Kelly Corrigan's book, The Middle Place, about, you know, her courageous fight against cancer while raising two girls and helping her dad fight his own cancer battle. You'd think a book like that would make me doubly or triply thankful for my many blessings, and it did, but still my mood persists.

So I'm back to putting all my hope in the dishwasher. It's so shiny, so clean, so quiet, so efficient. It will change my life, I tell myself. It will get me through this January, and beyond.

By The Numbers

2009-01-08T16:25:00.000-08:00

5 - pairs of children's socks scattered around our kitchen floor tonight at bathtime

1 - hour late Jason got home from work

60 - blessed minutes on the treadmill while the children played in the gym daycare

8 - hyper, tutu-ed little girls in Annie's newest round of Twinkle Toes dance class

28 - hours, approximately, until our much-anticipated new dishwasher is installed

10 - number Jemma can count to by herself

10 - time-outs (at least) Annie had today

12 - art projects (of her own making) Annie ripped off her wall during aforementioned time-outs

3 - meals which Jemma asked to "see, Mama" the preparation of

3 - meals during which Jemma used her fork with her right hand, her fork with her left hand, and then her fingers. And then ran her fingers through her hair.

2-4 - inches of fresh snow coming down right now

5 - times Jason and I giggled at Jemma because he taught her to say, "Stop looking at me, swan" from the Billy Madison movie. No sense . . . .

6 - the o'clock hour during which Annie went to bed

8 - times I opened the fridge today and caught a tempting glimpse of Founder's Double Chocolate Coffee Oatmeal Breakfast Stout.

Off to give in to temptation . . .

Contradictions

2009-01-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

Here on our utopian street where the weather is always perfect and nobody grows older except the children, we are lucky enough to have a neighbor who is so committed to teaching his children to skate that he builds an ice rink in his lawn every winter.

This afternoon, I took the girls over. While I was wrestling Jemma into her snowsuit and laughing while she called herself "Pink. Marsh. Mallow" over and over, Annie lectured me about her skates. How they are hockey skates. How the blades are really, really sharp. How we don't walk on the cement with them. I was only half-listening, worried about how I was going to manage two small beings on a hard, slippery surface.

I needn't have worried. Jemma, it turns out, benefits from her runtiness and low center of gravity. Basically, she toddles around the rink kicking a puck or throwing little snowballs she's made and she hardly ever falls down. When we started skating, Annie was holding on for dear life to a little patio table our neighbors use as something for the kids to push. At most, she was ice-marching in place; I had to pull the table slowly across the ice. We did this for 15 or 20 minutes, then went inside to play.

Later, just before it was time to go, Annie insisted on "skating" one more time before we went back home to make dinner. And this time, she actually skated. She refused to hold on to anything. Instead, she slid and marched and teetered and balanced and, yes, skated her way back and forth over and over again. I cheered for her. When she fell (numerous times), I asked her if she was OK. Over and over again, she just laughed, got back up, and skittered off in another direction. Second time ever on the ice, and she's a pro.

I am so proud to see stubborness, bravery, and determination at work in positive ways in her life because so often I dwell on the times when it's just the opposite. She is still afraid of so many things: scary characters in books and movies; the vacuum, the coffee grinder, the food processor, automatic flush toilets, the car wash - in short, anything noisy; flushing the toilet; blood, even the most miniscule amount. Within the last week, she's cried over such things as the toilet seat being too cold, the water being too hot to wash her hands, having to eat an orange rather than a purple vitamin, me leaving the house, and Sid the Science Kid being a re-run. CRIED.

So today, when she was bravely propelling herself across that ice, unprompted, unafraid of falling, I wished so much that I had a video camera to capture her accomplishment. I want to play it for her during those not-so-brave times, remind her: Look. See what you can do? And even though I still kind of hate winter, before it is over, I want to dig out my old ice skates from the basement and skate with my little girl around that rink.

Pleasantly Surprised

2009-01-05T16:22:00.001-08:00

I think I've written before about my insomnia, but if not, a quick recap. Since Annie was born, I've struggled off and on with sleep issues. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and am wide awake for a couple of hours. Sometimes I wander all over the house, trying to read for a while, searching for a different bed or coming back to mine when I feel sleepy again. Sometimes the littlest things wake me up (Jason getting up to pee, one sound from a child, a noise outside) and I never really get back to sleep. And sometimes, I just can't fall asleep at night in the first place. Last night was one of those nights, both for me and for Jason (who normally sleeps like a champ no matter what). Maybe it was that back-to-reality thing I spoke so cheerily about yesterday; maybe, deep down, there was a reluctance to re-enter the real world this morning.

In any case, today was a day much like any other Monday, but with less sleep. Annie was thrilled to be back at school. For show and tell, she brought the chick that had hatched out of the egg she put in water, a favorite stocking stuffer from Santa. Jemma happily watched Sesame Street and downed Cheerios while I went back into Accomplishing Things mode for the morning: making doctor's appointments, catching up on e-mail, unloading groceries and planning this week's meals, sneaking in a phone call or three. This afternoon, we went to the gym, where both girls hung out in the kids' area with no tears from either while I spent some time with the treadmill. And tonight, I managed to conjure up a dinner that every person in my family enjoyed (chicken, rice, and black bean tostadas), which is a small miracle in itself.

After dinner, after baths, I tucked Annie in at 7:00. I shut her door and came out in the living room to find Jason and Jemma on the couch, surrounded by books and covered with a big blanket. Jemma was climbing all around, scrutinizing each page for "A Annie" and "J Jemma" and "M?" (today's Sesame Street letter of the day). As I sat with them, Jason fell asleep. As soon as Jemma noticed, she ceased all her squirming and looked at me. "Daddy?" she said.

"What's he doing?" I asked.

"Nigh-night." She nodded solemnly. Then she scrambled over my legs and over his legs so she could put her arms up around his neck. She laid her head on his chest, closed her eyes, said, "Cuddle." It was the most still she'd been all day, excepting naptime.

Sleep. We're getting it when we can. And in spite of the lack, it was still a pretty great day.

Lazy Luxury

2009-01-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

After the rush of the holidays with all the travel and packing and presents and cooking and baking and cleaning and finding places for new toys and seeing people, I've spent the last couple of days giving myself time to be lazy and spoiled. It's been a nice post-holiday way to decompress (and, during that fun-but-busy holiday crazyness, it was something I held in my mind like a little prize, a carrot on a stick, if you will). I've had some lovely meals in restaurants (notably, dinner at six one six and brunch at Cygnus), gotten a haircut, been to the gym, swam at the pool with the girls, lazed around playing princess and doing puzzles with Annie, had some wine in front of the fire with Jason, read my book club's next selection, and had breakfast with Connie at Cherie Inn after our glorious girls' night away.

Tomorrow, it's back to school and back to work and back to reality, which I welcome. I'm feeling good about 2009, so far. I predict it's going to be full of luck, laughter, and more good food.

New Year's Quiz - 2008 in Review

2009-01-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

From one of my favorite bloggers, Sundry Mourning, for whom I may just be doing some regular writing in the new year. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, my attempt to sum up 2008 by answering a few random questions:

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Got paid for writing something.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I believe they involved drinking more (yes) and doing more cultural things around GR (yes again). I have already made three for 2009; we'll see how that goes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Too many people to count.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Nope.

5. What countries did you visit? Sadly, none.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? More discipline to write consistently and keep up with annoying house/family maintenance issues instead of procrastinating them.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Election Day.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Staying sane and (mostly) happy amid the chaos of two challenging children. Maintaining the relationships that are most important to me. Getting an audience for my writing on a well-known blog.

9. What was your biggest failure? Still not achieving that ever-elusive balance between family and self.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Ahhh, the great Doublestein family stomach flu plague of January and February 2008. And if insomnia and irritable bowel syndrome count, then that, too. Luckily, nothing major.

11. What was the best thing you bought? A pair of Joe's Jeans, red patent leather peep-toe heels, a really comfortable leather chair and ottoman.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My friend Andrea, whose life inspires me every day.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Occasionally, Annie's.

14. Where did most of your money go? Our TWO mortgages, student loans, car payments, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, investments, Costco, the Gap, coffee.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? The election, a writing class, my annual girls' weekend, Christmas morning, finding a new yoga studio.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Bizarrely, the first one that comes to mind is that little ditty by Colbie Caillat called Bubbly. Must have been on a lot at the pool this summer.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder?b) thinner or fatter?c) richer or poorer? Happier, fatter by a pound or two, about the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Travel.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Worry.

20. How did you spend Christmas? All over the place, as usual. Christmas morning here, Christmas afternoon in Petoskey.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Nope.

22. What was your favorite TV program? I think 30 Rock edged out The Office this year. Also loved The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nope.

24. What was the best book you read? Ohhhh. That is too hard. Maybe Eat, Pray, Love?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? I don't really make new musical discoveries, but I was introduced to the New Pornographers by my neighbors.

26. What did you want and get? The new Barefoot Contessa cookbook, a decent finishing time in The Riverbank Run, time to myself, a cute haircut.

27. What did you want and not get? A new dishwasher, kitchen island, fancy digital camera, iPhone, new Mac. (They are on the list for 2009, though!)

28. What was your favorite film of this year? I see so few movies. I think the only one I went to in the theater was Sex and the City.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I hosted a little front-yard party for Annie, then drove up north for Jason's cousin's wedding. I turned 31.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A glorious trip somewhere? Hmmmmmm.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Too Much Time Wearing Yoga Pants.

32. What kept you sane? Running, friends, Jason, alcohol, yoga, sunshine.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Barack.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Ditto.

35. Who did you miss? All my faraway friends, especially those in Seattle.

36. Who was the best new person you met? Maybe our new next-door neighbors. I am realizing that I don't meet many new people.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. "Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally" - Eckhart Tolle

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. "O bla de o bla da Life Goes On"

Resolutions

2008-12-31T11:08:00.000-08:00

1. Less worrying, more being in the moment (more yoga, too).

2. Less meat, more vegetables (joining an organic farmer's co-op should help).

3. Less time-wasting, more time for daily writing and working on my book idea.

Happy New Year!

Jemma is Two

2008-12-29T18:47:00.000-08:00

Dear Jemma,

Two days ago, two days after Christmas, you turned two years old. We were up north and I went in to get you from your crib while everyone else was downstairs having breakfast. I snuck in and sat on the love seat so I could watch you sleep, on your tummy with your fingers in your mouth and your little rump up in the air. "Hi, Birthday Girl," I said quietly, and you did what you almost always do when you wake up, which is: open your eyes, look around without moving the rest of your body, and then romp crazily around your crib on your hands and knees, giggling. Then I lifted you out and you put your warm head into the crook of my neck. This is how you are, both the silliest and the cuddliest of our two girls.

You are so busy lately, trying to keep up with Annie, trying to say every new word you hear. You run everywhere you go. You say "please" and "thank you" more than anyone else in the family. When you are being naughty, you give yourself a time-out in your room, then come out saying, "Sorry, Mommy." You love fruit. You hate every vegetable except squash. When you are finished eating, you stand right up in your high chair even though we have told you a million, billion times not to do that. You ask to brush and floss your teeth at least twice a day. You know the names of all the Disney princesses and love to see them on your band-aids and the mylar balloons at the grocery store. Your favorite color is purple. You love to take baths. You love to read books in the rocking chair. You kiss me on the lips before bed at night.

For weeks before your birthday, we talked to you about it. It got a little muddled up with the idea of Santa and baby Jesus and Christmas, but you finally got it: birthday cake, Jemma, two. On Saturday, we ate cake in Petoskey. Yesterday, we ate cake here with some more family. And tonight, we finished the cake off as dessert after a dinner where you ate only risotto (no shrimp, no salad, no vegetables). So, you have had plenty of cake. You are two. You are not our baby anymore. What you are is a sweet, silly, happy, uncomplicated toddler who our family loves fiercely. When you are sad, which is not often, we rally around you, we try to make it better. We are more patient with you than with one another, more forgiving, more amused. Your sunny little personality makes us a better family.

But in spite of all your goodness: You do this thing sometimes (I want to get it on video but I never can) when we ask you a question or ask you to do something that you feel you have already done. You gather your fury and your indignity. "I DID!" you say, with that mysterious, slight Southern accent. I worry all the time, feel guilty that your birthday will be lost in the shuffle of such a busy season, and hope that you won't feel overlooked in years to come. You are the peacemaker, the happy-go-lucky; it could happen. Then I see that little spark, that determination, and I feel better. You turned two. You DID. And we celebrated you, we celebrate you every single day. Happy birthday, little one. We love you so, so much.

Love,
Mommy

Christmas 2008

2008-12-29T17:55:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I'm struggling today. It's Monday, Christmas is over, and I should be ordering my life into some semblance of normalcy. I thought (foolishly) that I'd breeze through today, able to clean up the remants of Christmas morning that still linger around my house because the girls would be so busy playing with all their new things. No need to plan an outing! No need to pile everyone into the car and head somewhere to burn off steam! I'll just sip coffee and stack the cardboard boxes in a tall tower by the back door. Instead, I spent the day accomplishing things in 2-minute increments in between breaking up fights over the new things. Nothing new there.

Three times today, Annie caught me taking down stockings or packing away the nativity scene and had a small breakdown. "Mommy, I want it to still be Christmas!" she wailed. I know how she feels. Most of me is annoyed that our now-droopy Christmas tree still stands in our front room simply because there hasn't really been an evening to take it down (and I refuse to let the girls "help" with putting away the ornaments and lights); a small part of me is sad to see it all go. I drive past outdoor Christmas lights and know that the winter landscape will be so bleak and dreary once they are down. I miss the sounds of Christmas music in our house during the day and in the car when we drive to the gym. I remember begging my parents to leave the tree up for just one more day.

I can see, too, how every Christmas is going to blend into the others, so that in twenty or thirty years, it will be impossible to remember what we did, where we were, how it was. We'll have our pictures, thank goodness, but before I forget, I want to note that this was the Christmas when:

-Annie wore a gold sparkly dress she picked out herself and Jemma wore a plaid taffeta dress that made her look so grown up.

-The girls set out cookies and milk for Santa on the floor next to the fireplace and ate the crumbs he left for breakfast the next morning.

-Annie woke up early, as usual, but didn't come out of her room. When we went in to get her, she said she hadn't wanted to come out because she never heard the reindeer on the roof, so she was afraid that Santa hadn't had time to come yet.

-Out of all her presents in her stocking and under the tree, Jemma would absolutely not let go of three small multicolored Twizzlers leftover from Halloween that I threw in her stocking at the last minute. "Hold them, have them," she kept saying, until we finally just let her eat them at 7:30 a.m. Later, when we asked her what Santa brought her, she said, "Candy canes" (which is what she thought they were) and when we asked her what else, she said, "Cheerios," which was totally untrue.

-Annie's favorite presents were the new Baby Alive doll from Aunt Lisa and Uncle Trevor (which she named "Ormandy" and later changed to "Elizabeth Ormandy"); the big dollhouse she and Jemma got from my parents; the Ariel doll head from Santa; new swim goggles; the book Madeleine; red dress-up shoes from Aunt Bonnie.

-Jemma loved her new Baby Alive doll, too (named "Baby Marta"), as well as a Dora tent, princess slippers, the Curious George movie, and Cinderella figurines.

-We spent Christmas Eve in Holland with my parents, woke up with the girls at our house for a cozy breakfast and presents, then left for Petoskey before 10:00 a.m. on Christmas Day.

-We were able to connect with some old, good friends from dental school for spontaneous sledding and lunch while in Petoskey. Theron and Jennifer's daughter, Carolyn, and Annie were instant friends, sitting next to each other at the restaurant and grinning ear to ear while saying things like "I love Tinkerbell!" and "Your little sister is cute."

-We drove home two days later through some intense fog, wind, and rain to find almost all our snow gone and the thermometer on the car reading 56 degrees.

There is just nothing else as magical as Christmas morning with little children. And even though it's already a blur, already a memory, I tried to treasure every single second this year because there are going to be so few years when they really, truly believe in the magic of it all.

Half Empty, Half Full

2008-12-23T17:03:00.000-08:00

Half Empty:

1. The average December snowfall in Grand Rapids is 18 inches. As of two days ago, we'd received 38, and it's snowing steadily outside my window right now. Even worse, the ridiculously low temperatures that accompany it have ended our previously fun afternoons playing outside in it. Today I actually let the car idle in the driveway with the girls strapped in when we got home from the gym so I could shovel the front steps while they watched.

2. Not only has Annie completely stopped napping (except, you know, once every two or three weeks on a day that we specifically wouldn't want her to do it), but she has also begun waking up at 6:00 a.m. sharp!

3. I was (unfortunately) at the mall yesterday (getting the last-minute things I had meant to get the previous Friday morning but couldn't - see item #1 - ) and I noticed that J. Crew had approximately one winter item in their store. The rest of the floor space already seems to be reserved for New Spring Lines and Fancy Cruise Wear.

4. We have been far, far exceeding our Daily TV Quota.

5. I went upstairs for two minutes this afternoon and came back downstairs to find Jemma naked from the waist down. Is she going to be That Kid?

6. Annie asked repeatedly today if Santa is going to bring her "lots and lots and lots of presents." And the answer is not what she's hoping it is.

Half Full:

1. It sure is Christmassy out there! And I'm sure that because it's snowing three times the usual amount in December, it's just not going to snow AT ALL in February or March or April.

2. There is so much time to accomplish grown-up things when you put your four-year-old to bed at 6:30 p.m.!

3. At least I will be able to find plenty of cute items for our February trip to Florida.

4. We have discovered a hilarious - yet educational! - new show called Sid the Science Kid on PBS. Annie is super into it; every day there is a different little lesson with the hip Latina teacher about something science-related (today's was why/how things grow). She pays attention to every detail, asks tons of questions, and wants to try things out (like measuring with a ruler) after the show is over. I love it because it lets me clean up lunch and accomplish a few things from 12:30 - 1:00. I also secretly love the songs Sid sings upon arriving at school every day. One is a little rap about his mom, the other is a dance number called "I'm Lookin' For My Friends." Seriously, check it out.

5. Maybe she'll love the idea of potty-training (in six months when I actually want to do it) and won't fight me about it like someone else I can think of . . . . .

6. Annie will learn at an early age to embrace the concept of Quality over Quantity after receiving three perfectly-chosen gifts from Santa.Two days till Christmas!

Adventures in Potty-sitting

2008-12-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

Act One: 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning, Doublestein household

Characters present: Jason, Annie, Jemma

The scene: After a long, snowy day inside on Friday, Stephanie decides to go to the gym with neighbor Sarah for a morning run and rowing tutorial. Inside the house, Jason eagerly awaits the delivery of their new, bought-with-five-years-of-credit-card-points leather chair, scheduled to arrive between 8:00 and 10:00. While he waits, he decides abruptly that he absolutely MUST shovel the bottom of the driveway (the part where the street plow deposited one ton of snow) to aid the deliverymen. (Note that his general shoveling philosophy is, "Why shovel? It's just going to snow more;" as a result, Stephanie does 90% of the winter shoveling.) Seized by this sudden burst of devotion to shoveling, he decides to just leave the children inside the house, coming in to check on them every five minutes. They are wearing dance outfits and re-enacting the Nutcracker Sugar Plum Fairy dance. They are happy. What could happen?

The delivery truck pulls up just as Jason is finishing his shoveling chore. He leads the men inside the house. He hears Annie talking to Jemma from an unseen location.

Annie: "Jemma, come here! I have to put your diaper back on!"

Jemma: "New dipe! New dipe!" Runs into living room, completely naked, followed closely by Annie, holding a diaper.

Annie, seeing Jason: "Dad, I'm just changing her diaper. She just went poop on the potty."

Jason: "What????!!!??"

Deliveryman: "Ah, where do you want the chair?"

Annie: "Yeah, dad. She kept saying, 'poo-poo, potty' so I asked her if she needed to go poop and she said yes and I asked if she wanted to sit on the potty and she said yes so I took her pants and diaper off and put the potty seat on the toilet and lifted her up there and now there's a little poop in there. So I need to put a new diaper on her."

Deliveryman, to Jemma: "Aren't you cold?"

*************************

Act Two: Saturday evening 5:30 p.m., Blue Water Grill restaurant

Characters present: Jason, Stephanie, Annie, Jemma

Scene One: After spending the afternoon at Meijer Gardens looking at the reindeer, the train, and the Christmas trees, the family goes out for dinner. Jemma orders chocolate milk, Annie orders a Shirley Temple, and Jason and Stephanie order house cabernet. Annie's drink arrives accompanied by four flavors of maraschino cherries, which she and Jemma promptly (stickily) eat. Annie then drinks down half her beverage in the 10 minutes it takes for the food to arrive. The family begins to eat.

Annie, squirming: "Mom, I'm not hungry. I want to go home."

Stephanie: "What?? And miss all the special Christmas lights we're going to go see?"

Annie: "I have a tummy-ache. I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Stephanie shoots knowing glance at Jason. "Do you have to go potty?"

Annie: "No."

Stephanie: "Let's just go try."

Annie: "Nooooooooooooooooooooo! I'm afraid it's going to be a loud flush! I'm afraid it's going to flush by itself! No Mommy No I'll just wait and go at home!!!!"

Stephanie: "Fine." Takes large swallow of wine.

Five minutes later:

Annie: "Mom, I have to go potty really bad."

Stephanie: "Yeah, I know. Let's just go SEE what kind of toilets they are, and if they're noisy, you can cover your ears and I can make them so they don't flush by themselves."

The two walk to the bathroom, Annie whimpering the whole way.

Scene Two, in the bathroom:

Annie, digging her heels in as Stephanie attempts to drag her into the stall: "Mommy, no, I don't have to go anymore! It's an automatic flush! Noooooooooooooooooo!!!"

Stephanie takes a napkin (which she has brilliantly brought along for just such emergency use) and covers the flush sensor of the toilet. "See, I put the napkin over it and NOW," (waves hand in front of toilet repeatedly) "Now it won't flush until I take the napkin away. See? So come sit down and go."

Annie, trying to climb the corner of the stall to get as far away as possible from the toilet while still covering her ears: "Mommy, noooooooooooo."

Stephanie reaches with her free arm to collar Annie and try to coax her slowly to the toilet. "Annie, I promise I'm not going to let it flush while you're on it."

Annie looks up warily. "Promise?"

Stephanie: "I promise."

They repeat this coversation for approximately 13 minutes until Annie reluctantly climbs on and pees, still covering her ears, then sprints back to her corner before allowing Stephanie to let the toilet flush. They wash hands, exit the stall, and walk back to their table, where the food has been boxed up. Stephanie sits down, raises her glass of wine to Jason, and says, "Cheers!" before drinking down the remainder of the drink in one gulp.

The end.

Snow Day

2008-12-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

Our morning began at 6:00 a.m. sharp, which is when Annie has been starting her day lately. We woke up to almost a foot of snow that had fallen in the previous few hours; schools everywhere (including hers) were closed for the day. She cried for about thirty seconds about missing her Gingerbread party, then moved on to making new plans for the day. Since we really, truly couldn't go anywhere in the car, our options were limited to our neighborhood. We invited Heidi and Jonathan over to hang out for the morning. It was nice; grownups drank coffee and talked, kids ran around and self-amused for over an hour. After that, we braved the outdoors. The girls absolutely loved all the snow (it came up to Annie's mid-thigh, and Jemma couldn't even walk in it except where it had been trampled down by feet or shovels). Jason and I sort of loved it, too, party because it felt a whole lot like the infamous winters of our childhood, the ones where people ventured out only via snowmobile and babies were born after dramatic drives to the hospital.

The rest of the day, we played inside, drank hot cocoa, danced, drew, took a big walk outside right down the middle of streets, and made Christmas cookies. I used a sugar cookie recipe of Nigella Lawson's from my How To Be A Domestic Goddess cookbook. The dough turned out sort of sticky, the baked cookies tasted fine, but my favorite part of the recipe was her statement at the end regarding letting children ice them in all different colors of frosting: "Let the artistic spirit be your guide, remembering with gratitude that children have very bad taste." Indeed. Annie dumped half a pound of pale pink sanding sugar on her Christmas tree cookie after dotting it with green sprinkles; Jemma chose hot pink for hers. They were very excited about the project, though, and for the second time today I felt transported back to my childhood, doing something I'd done over and over as a kid, now with kids of my own.

Now they're snugly in bed, and Jason and I are readying ourselves to decorate batch #2 of the grown-up-made cookies. This kind of decorating is a different kind of fun than the chaos with the girls - more alcohol, less flour on the floor, and colors that actually go together.

***Post amended (and first two photos added) to show that, upon going back downstairs after writing this post, Jason was found deeply involved in some decidedly un-manly cookie-decorating while listening to Christmas music by Wham! As you can see from the photos, he was getting a little carried away.

(Mis)adventures

2008-12-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

Wednesdays in winter tend to be loooooong, long days, so I try to attack them with some type of action plan in the hopes of enjoying the time instead of sitting on the couch while Meet Strawberry Shortcake plays on repeat and my house becomes trashed by the dragging out of every single stuffed animal and dress-up item we own. Yesterday after naps, we headed to the pool. It was especially warm, the girls were especially happy to splash and play and jump in to me, and Lucy plus family showed up half-way through our time there. She and Annie spent almost half an hour racing one another, chasing, paddling, and having a blast. I had just started the "Five More Minutes" countdown and was on minute three when I noticed the lifeguard sauntering over to get the big net-on-a-pole thing lifeguards use to fish things out of water. Holding Jemma, I watched as he stuck it down to the bottom and brought it back up with something that looked suspiciously like a turd on it. I caught his eye and raised my eyebrows questioningly. He nodded affirmatively. I had the girls out of the pool in 2.4 seconds and had Annie out of there before her hysteria could set in.

*************

After the pool, I made an executive decision to eat dinner at Panera since I knew we wouldn't see Jason any time before bedtime. We got there, ordered our food, and found a quiet table. The girls were being adorable with each other and were just happy to be doing something different for dinner. We started to eat our food when, two tables over, a 2 or 3-year-old girl started losing it. Full-on tantrum in the middle of the restaurant. I'm pretty tolerant of minor meltdowns, but the mom (who was with a friend) pretty much ignored it and it went on for a good 15 minutes, at which point the entire restaurant was shooting her pointed looks. Annie had a lot to say about this. Her (loud) comments included:

"Mom, why is that girl crying?"
"Mom, she is making so much noise it's hard to think."
"Well, SOMETHING'S wrong with her."
"Maybe she's SICK."
"Mom, I'm tired of that girl crying. I want her to leave."

Jemma merely pointed, said, "Sad," and nodded at me meaningfully.

*************

This morning, we spent a little time at the bookstore (Annie's request) before heading to get groceries. I made time for a little detour to see the trains and let the girls throw a penny in the fish pond. (Side note: When I asked Annie what she was going to wish for, she said, "To have a baby." When I explained that she could someday in a long, long time, she said, "No, to have a baby right now when I'm a kid." Her back-up, second wish was "To get married" and her third wish, when I pressed her to name something - anything! - that might actually happen, was "To watch a real wedding." I need to get this child some career-woman role models.)

We were kneeling down watching our pennies disappear amongst the fish when who should walk by but SANTA. Apparently he was coming back from a break and was heading to his chair for photos. He kindly stopped to talk to us from across the little fish pond. He and Annie chatted about the weather while Jemma gaped, open-mouthed, until I asked her who it was. "Santa," she whispered.

"And what does Santa say?" I asked.

Right on cue, Santa let out a hearty "Ho Ho Ho!" and Jemma broke into the biggest smile I have ever seen. Later, as we were leaving the fishpond, Annie remarked to herself, "Santa is everywhere."

*************

Today was our niece Marta's first birthday and the girls wanted to call her on the phone. So we called and Trevor held the phone up to Marta's ear while Jemma mumbled "Birthday" and Annie said, "Happy Birthday, Marta!" Then the girls pretended to bake a birthday cake and our after-dinner time was spent pretending that it was each member of the family's birthday in turn. We talk all the time about how it will be Jemma's birthday soon, plus we have a book called "What is Christmas?" where it talks about Christmas being Jesus' birthday, so there is a lot of birthday talk going on in the house lately.

I was putting Jemma to bed tonight and she had chosen two books: Carl Goes Shopping (which we read every. single. day.) and What Is Christmas. When I got to the end, Jemma pointed to the baby lying in the manger and brought it all together for herself: "Baby. Jesus. Birthday. Cake. Jemma. Two." Birthday cake for Jemma and Jesus, coming right up.

Ballerina

2008-12-15T19:37:00.000-08:00

Annie did spectacularly well at her dance recital on Saturday. When we got there, the auditorium was a total zoo (just like the last two recitals): parents with cameras milling everywhere, tiny dancers prancing around and finding their seats, and at least one three-year-old crying on a mommy's shoulder because of the chaos. As we sat in our seats with both sets of grandparents waiting for it all to begin, I got more and more nervous. I kept standing up and contorting my body around to peek at Annie, seated in the back with her class. She'd smile, wave, and bounce around on her seat next to her friend Kate. Not nervous AT ALL.

When it was their turn, she was all concentration and seriousness, tapping earnestly and following Miss Amy before throwing her Santa hat up in the air at the end, on cue. I snuck down to the front row to snap some pictures while she was dancing; she noticed me a few seconds into the song and threw me an embarrassed half-smile, like, MOM, what are you doing there? Can't you see I'm busy DANCING? So cute. So proud. We celebrated by going home, getting burgers from Wealthy Station, and eating in the living room while watching the video of her performance.

On Sunday, Jason's parents took her to see the Nutcracker at DeVos. In preparation for this big event, Jason's mom had sent Annie the book a couple weeks ago so she'd know the story when she was watching the ballet onstage. Unfortunately, the book had a couple very creative, graphic illustrations of The Evil Seven-Headed Rat King, so after the first reading of it, where I tried to gloss over any scariness, Annie's response to me asking, "Want to read The Nutcracker tonight?" was "NOOOOOOOOO THERE'S A SCARY RAT BUNNY IN THAT BOOK!!!!" We were unsure about how she'd do when Scary Rat Bunny was dancing right in front of her. She did great. She was in love with the various princesses and queens and fairy-types. She asked tons of questions about the orchestra. And at one point, when the brother and sister fought over the nutcracker and the brother broke it, the brother went off stage. Annie turned to her grandma and said, "Grandma, where did Frederick go? Is he in a time-out?"

So, my tiny dancer, my little ballerina, when you came up to me at the end of that weekend, asked for a hug, and said, "Mommy, want to squeeze my guts out?" the answer is yes, of course I do.

Twelve Days to Go

2008-12-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

and, no, I am not finished Christmas shopping. Mostly, but not completely, because my husband is a difficult person to shop for. There are a few things he wants that are too expensive (new laptop, Nintendo Wii with Guitar Hero); a few things that I do not want us to own (giant coffee grinder which would be one more thing to sit on our kitchen counter, slow cooker); and the boring standards (clothes that he does desperately need, socks, music). Ideas, anyone?

The girls are at a particularly fun age this year - the most fun they've been, yet, at Christmas time, and it's all I can do not to buy up everything in sight for them to open on Christmas morning. Jason took them to see the Christmas trees at Meijer Gardens this morning and they came home full of stories and wonder. I love driving places with them right now (when Annie isn't kicking Jemma, that is), looking in my rearview mirror to see their happy faces bobbing along to Holly Jolly Christmas or Rudolph. (They do not get the concept of "radio" versus "CD" and are constantly asking me to find a certain song on the Christmas station, or to play one "again" that was just on. If I have to explain the impossibility of this one more time . . . .)

In an hour, we'll be down the street at the auditorium, wating for Annie's dance recital to begin. This year, she's tapping to "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and, though she was not really paying attention at all during rehearsal on Thursday, I am sure it will be adorable no matter what. She's been in such a great mood all day, so excited to get up on that stage and tap her heart out in front of a couple hundred strangers. I can't wait. Pictures to come, I promise.

So Many (Unanswerable) Questions

2008-12-10T16:58:00.000-08:00

"Mom, what makes the rain decide to come out of the clouds?"

"I feel like I only see ants during the spring and the summer. Where do they go during the winter? Are they in tunnels underground this road right now???"

"Mom, who do you love the most - me, Jemma, or Daddy? No, not all the same, but (wink, wink) who do you REALLY love the most?"

"Where exactly IS this Winter Wonderland?"

Nine More, For Good Measure

2008-12-09T19:32:00.000-08:00

Because I am just so damn interesting (or, because once I started thinking like this in the morning, my brain was coming up with random facts all day and I must get them out - OUT! - of my brain before they drive me crazy):

-My favorite book is Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, and I read it every year in June as a ritual to kick off summer.

-I have never, not even when I was little, picked my nose and eaten it.

-When I was in middle school and high school, I thought I would totally snag a cool boyfriend if only I was good at volleyball.

-The one food I am unable to eat rationally is Oreo cookies. It is best if I never have them in the house. When Jason occasionally buys them, he hides them from me. Then I search the house until I find them and eat a whole row in 10 minutes.

-I scored a perfect 36 on my ACT verbal. (You can see that's getting me all sorts of high-powered jobs these days.)

-If I were president, the first thing I'd do would be to eliminate NASA (what is the point of it?) and allocate all the money to underprivileged schools.

-Jason and I had two "first kisses" - one on New Year's Eve of my freshman year at Hope, one on our third date in September of the following year.

-I really love to open a new container of something with a seal (like peanut butter or margarine) and be the first to scoop into the smooth, pure surface of it. I get sad if Jason does it. Understandably, he mocks me for this.

-I never tried smoking until a camping trip during my freshman year of college, and then I went all in with a Marlboro Red and passed out on a log.

I've Been Tagged

2008-12-09T04:41:00.000-08:00

My friend and neighbor, Sarah, tagged me in a game of blog tag. I have to list six random things about myself, then tag six other bloggers to do the same.

1. When I was little (5th grade?) I fell in love with one of those very tiny toads you see outside in the summer. I named it Pepper and I kept it in a large bucket in our garage for the entire summer. I created a pond out of a Cool-Whip container and a rock-and-grass area off to one side. I killed flies and bugs to feed Pepper daily. I cried when my parents made me let him go at the end of the summer.

2. When I was in Vienna, Austria in 1997, a man with a briefcase came up to me while I was reading on a park bench and asked repeatedly to be allowed to lick my toes. I refused; he got angry and left. (I later saw him doing it to someone else!)

3. I have an overwhelming, irrational fear of vomiting. If I hear of anyone I know being sick with the stomach flu, I immediately begin calculating if we have seen anyone who they have seen within the last 10 days, then I disinfect door handles, light switches, etc. I am not clausterphobic, but I do sometimes get nervous if I am in a really crowded place and can't see a place where I could go if I needed to throw up . . . even if I am feeling 100% fine. I know, crazy.

4. I have had the same best friend for 27 years. I met Connie when we were both four years old and she moved onto my street. Things we have done together include: have a front-yard store selling candy called Are We Over the Rainbow Yet?; have a rock band called Blazing Paradise; play clarinet in the school band; spend whole afternoons eating Pizzeria chips and diet Rite White Grape pop; drive to Florida together; hike a snowy mountain in Wyoming in the rain and, afterwards, sleep in the same sleeping bag together to prevent hypothermia; room together and pledge the same sorority in college; watch Billy Madison almost every afternoon of our freshman year; be maid of honor at one another's weddings; hold one another's children on the day they were born; crack up during yoga class; and talk on the phone pretty much every day. Sometimes twice.

5. I hate Rod Stewart and Gloria Estefan's voices with a passion and can't listen to any song by them for more than 2 seconds.

6. Unless they are things that clearly go together (beef roast and mashed potatoes, turkey and stuffing), I do not like my food to touch on my plate.

So . . . . I'm tagging:

-My sorority sister and friend since freshman year of college, Team Pellow
-My sister-in-law, Pancakes for Breakfast
-My neighbor, Heidi, who hasn't updated her blog since August (with good reason), but who might enjoy doing a fun, easy post at The Kett Family.
-My other neighbor, Shawn, who hasn't updated his blog since August, either, and who owes the neighborhood a little entertainment.
-My friend and her sister, who have a joint blog, and thus count for two people.

24 Hours Alone Together

2008-12-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I surprised Jason by driving the kids to my parents' (and, due to the snow situation, this took far longer than it should have) and showing up at his work Christmas lunch. We had a giant, delicious meal with his staff and then went on to enjoy a leisurely afternoon of Christmas shopping, the downtown tree lighting and the art museum, cocktails and sushi at the JW Marriott, and a late dinner in front of the fire.

The girls spent the night at my parents', so we woke up this morning to a quiet house. We made coffee, ate chocolate croissants, addressed Christmas cards, wrapped Christmas presents, watched the Food Network, and organized over a year and a half worth of photos that have been lying around sadly, just waiting to be put in albums.

If this sound magical, it was. It was leisurely, luxurious, relaxing, fun, merry, spontaneous, and festive. None of our activities were planned; we just did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. Not since last August have we had the house to ourselves while the girls were elsewhere, and even then, I was taking a class and Jason was working, so there were no late nights or lazy mornings. It might be the single thing I miss most about pre-children life - the ability to wake up on a Saturday morning (whenever your body wakes you up) and decide what to do with your morning. We still manage, with sitters and generous grandparents, to go out at night plenty. But mornings . . . .

Looking through all the photos as we put them in albums was like watching almost two years of our girl's childhoods fly by in a blink. Look! There's Jemma's baptism. Look! There's Annie's first dance recital. Look! There's brunch at Bay View on the fourth of July. Look! There's Jemma's first birthday. Look! Look!

I know people are always saying (and I'm always concurring) that it all goes by so fast. But for me, truly, it didn't used to. During that first winter of Jemma's life, I did not take kindly to the random strangers in the grocery store who would coo over my children (one of them a newly-sassy two-year-old, one of them a colicky, screechy, spitting-up newborn) and tell me how quickly it goes. IT WAS NOT GOING QUICKLY. And I admit that there were many, many dark days when I woke up in the morning and was filled with only dread at the thought of so many hours at home with them on so little sleep: no preschool, no gym, no dance, no playgroups, no outdoor play. It was literally freezing outside, we didn't really know our neighbors yet, and our pediatrician had scared us silly about letting Jemma be exposed to any germs for the first six weeks of her life. So it was us, inside, all the time.

But now. Now, although I have a few moments almost every day when I wish for my "old life" back - for silly reasons, mostly - those moments are outnumbered a bazillion to one by the moments when I am not only so glad to have them, but glad to be with them.

I talked to them on the phone this morning, their voices all high-pitched and elfin on the phone. In a half hour or so, my parents are going to be back with them. They'll pile in the house with all their bags of gear and clothes and snowsuits and dolls, and we'll eat dinner all together, three generations, and I won't mind the chaos a bit, no matter how magical and completely necessary the last 24 hours have been.

While Watching 30 Rock

2008-12-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

Jason: "Want to feel how dry my nipples are?"

Me, promptly: "No thanks."

And that, readers, is my 300th post. Profound.

Things She Does

2008-12-03T16:09:00.000-08:00

1. Says most two-syllable words with a distinct pause between the syllables: "Hor. Sie." "Pun. Kin." "Ber. It."

2. Sings along to Rudolph with her own unintelligible words until it gets to the part, "Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say," when she does a very animated "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and then wanders off into reminiscing about when she saw Santa at the tree-lighting last week: "Santa. Ho ho ho! Horsies. Tree."

3. Says "Christmas!" excitedly ("Chris. Miss!") anytime she spys a lit tree, outdoor lights, wreaths, Santa, or hears the word "Christmas" in a song on the radio.

4. Asks for "sfruit" at the end of every meal.

5. Wants to stay in the bathtub for as long as possible to "fim."

6. Knows all her colors, recognizes the letter J, and thinks she can write her name with crayon.

7. Says "Eat" the minute we go in to get her out of her crib in the morning.

8. Takes fully five minutes to get her mittens on, but insists on doing it "self."

9. Yells, "Love you!" as we leave the room after tucking her into bed at night.

10. Obviously, has the best nap hair ever.

Secret Agent Josephine Strikes Again

2008-12-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

Again, we were inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, SAJ, to create some homemade wrapping paper. She did lemons and limes; we did holly leaves and berries. The girls loved it and it wasn't too messy, considering the paint involved (possibly because I made them take their shirts off).

A Sucker Doesn't Really Make Up For It

2008-12-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

After this morning's annoying snow day (annoying because we'd already had a week off school due to Thanksgiving, and doubly annoying because three inches of snow does not make the roads dangerous in Michigan, people), we had an even more annoying afternoon. We had Annie's long-put-off four-year-old well child checkup. Her pediatrician, whom I really love, had a baby at the end of August, so I opted to wait until she was back to do Annie's check so we could have our usual doc. That, and I had heard that the shot situation at this appointment was dreadful, so I was putting it off as long as possible.

The stats: 30 lbs, 6 oz (which is actually the 20th percentile for girls!), 40 inches tall (strangely, 60th percentile for height). Her doctor wanted to make sure she knew all her colors (um, were we talking about Jemma, because if so, YES) and could count to ten. "I can count to a hundred!" Annie interrupted.

Then, the shots. I told Annie before that there would be shots, and she's actually pretty OK about it all. She gets why she has to have them and she talks a good talk on the way there about how it'll just pinch for a minute and then she'll get a sucker when it's over. (The sucker is from me, not the doctor, who I doubt would be super-proud of a dentist's wife rewarding her children with inappropriate candy, but, whatever.)

There were FIVE. Two nurses came in so they could do it together and it would be over faster. And when Annie looked up at me when I got her on my lap and held her arms tightly against my chest, I pretty much wanted to kill myself rather than have to make her go through it. She screamed, and even though they did it as quickly as they could, it took waaaaaay too long. Jemma was sitting on a bench, watching, yelling, "All Done!" optimistically the whole time.

After it was over, they let her pick a super-special prize for kids who have to get FIVE shots in one day, and she chose a pink poodle dog that doubles as a purse. She's sleeping with it right now; its name is Miss Long Legs. And I did indeed give her a sucker for the ride home, plus let her eat chicken noodle soup for dinner in the living room while watching Strawberry Shortcake. She would whimper and look pitiful every once in a while, and I would sit next to her, stroke her hair, and tell her how brave she was. FIVE. Let's not do that again for a very long time.

End of A Long Weekend

2008-11-30T15:36:00.000-08:00

The weekend is ending just like it began, with plenty of family time and a big dinner together. Jason just declared tonight "Taco Night" (and - surprise! - Jemma actually ATE IT), and now the girls are downstairs reading books with Jason on the couch in front of a fire. In between Thanksgiving and today, our time was filled with getting our Christmas tree and decorating it; having a fun lunch at The Corner Bar in Rockford; a healthy run at the gym; swimming at the pool this afternoon; lots of cleaning, laundry, and house-decorating; a trip to the farmer's market for windowbox greenery and some Mommy Only shopping time yesterday afternoon; spontaneously taking Annie to a children's production of Twas The Night Before Christmas ballet at St. Cecelia's downtown (and subsequently waiting in line while she met Santa Claus and told him what she wanted for Christmas, which - Christmas miracle - I had just ordered online that morning); and a rousing grown-up Game Night with friends last night, which I thoroughly enjoyed despite my lack of love for most board games.

I admit, as we enter into the darkest, coldest, most challenging time of year for being a stay-at-home-mom (or parent of any type, really), that some days I cringe at the thought of all the holiday busyness and post-holiday crappy lull; at the germ potential lurking at each indoor location we frequent; at the thought of weeks and months of struggling to get two fully begloved, behatted, boot-wearing, coats-zipped children out the door into a car that needs to be brushed off. I wonder when Annie will stop asking me "Which coat?" when we're getting ready to leave the house and then dissolving into a pile on the floor when I say, "The puffy one." (Memo to Annie: It's winter. I'm going to be saying "the puffy one" for at least three or four more months; get used to it. And while we're on the subject, the answer to your question about your Crocs is a definitive NO, so stop asking about that, too.) I wonder, too, when I might be able to stop ending my phone conversations with Connie with a variation of the phrase: "I have to go; Jemma is (destroying a library book; coloring in the playroom with a Sharpie; climbing the dining room table . . . . )."

Today, though, was full of Christmas music, lazy coffee drinking, gleeful children showing off their pool bravery, and now a cozy fire in a house that smells like pine tree. I'm going to tuck my girls in bed, address some Christmas cards, and enjoy the gorgeous newfallen snow. Now. Before my hatred of winter has time to get the best of me.

Thankfulness, Belated, In No Particular Order

2008-11-28T04:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was full of cooking, transporting, eating, child-wrangling, and gathering with my mom's side of the family in Holland. No time to blog. So a few things I'm thankful for on the day after Thanksgiving:

1. My mom, whose birthday it was yesterday. Yes, she does little things that drive me crazy (asks my children every time she sees them if they're warm enough, calls me once a week with a literal list of questions/issues to fire at me, considers Jello a nutritious side dish to serve my family, wears her jeans two inches too short), but she really is amazing, in a low-key, unassuming way. No flash, no drama, just genuine love and support. She's one of the few people I know who really does manage to give advice only when it's asked for, who does kind and thoughtful things for others for all the right reasons, who strikes a perfect balance between being a parent and a friend now that I'm a grown-up. She taught me to be independent, compassionate, and practical; she lives her most-often-given advice: "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." And yes, these words now come out of my mouth as a gift to my eldest daughter, too.

2. My now 23-month-old Jemma, who only has one more month left of being one year old. Yesterday she refused to nap for the first time in her life despite all my best efforts. I finally went in to lie down with her, knowing she wasn't happy about being in a Pack and Play in a strange bedroom. We laid on the bed together and I tried to soothe her and talk her into laying down her head. "Light!" she said. "Clock!" "Telephone. Get it. Get it." "Arm!" "Mommy arm. Daddy? Annie night-night?" "Eat.Eat.Eat." she chirped. I gave up. We went back upstairs to play with cousins and eat apple crisp. And surprisingly, she didn't have a giant meltdown later in the afternoon. So big, my little Jemma.

3. Annie, of course, who came up to me spontaneously yesterday and said, "Mommy, I love you so much." We are hard on each other sometimes, so it was good to hear that.

4. Coffee, in all its forms.

5. Being surrounded by such a great community of friends, neighbors, and family. Jason and I watched a documentary about Grand Rapids on PBS on Wednesday night and, while there are surely many more interesting and diverse places to live, we feel like we've found just the right place for us and we were inspired to find more ways to participate and give back to our community the way that so many others are doing.

6. Finding a pair of cute green cords at J. Crew marked down to $29.99 and then marked 30% off the sale price. Bargain! I wore them yesterday.

7. Our gym, which I might as well call "our pool" because I now officially go there more frequently to swim with the girls than to work out. I love being able to pack them up on a yucky November day and take them someplace warm and fun. Bonus: that chlorine kills all the winter kid germs, right? Bonus: Annie is getting braver and braver; maybe she'll teach herself how to swim and we can save some money on lessons?

8. This four-day weekend, with enough time for getting a Christmas tree, playing games with friends, eating, shopping, working out, sleeping, watching Christmas movies, and generally getting into the spirit of the holidays even more.

Off to chop down an unsuspecting pine tree!

From Preschool to College

2008-11-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

Annie woke up yesterday morning at 5:45. When Jason left for work at 7:00, she threw a half-hour-long fit because, "I WANT DADDY! I WANT MY DADDY! GET OUT OF HERE! I WANT DADDY!" Nothing like starting the week off with a big, pointless battle and feeling like the no-fun parent.

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At school, also yesterday, her class had a Thanksgiving "feast," which parents were invited to but which I wasn't able to attend because it was a No Siblings Allowed situation and I had no plan for Jemma. So I dropped Annie off, promised I'd be at the Gingerbread Party in December, and came back at 11:20 to find her - surprise! - still eating. She was the last one still sitting at the table, methodically eating every little morsel of food on her plate. She is routinely the last one done with snack, I know, but this was literally like Thanksgiving dinner and it was clearly going to take her another fifteen minutes or so to finish. I sat down. I talked to her teachers. I started gathering up all her Thanksgiving-themed art projects from the week before and shoving them into her bag.

Miss Jenny was taking down a bulletin board full of little construction paper handprints. "Here's Annie's; you can take it home." She handed it to me. It said, "Annie is thankful for her mom."

Then I looked at the laminated placemat Annie was eating on, one she had made on another day. It said the same thing.

**************************

This morning, Annie had a make-up dance class. (Miss Amy, her teacher, had to miss the first week of scheduled classes in September because she hurt her back, so she rescheduled the session for today.) For the first half, during ballet, Annie was completely off-task - running around, crawling on the floor and barking, tickling the other girls, not paying attention at all. I was out in the lobby, watching, wanting to march in there and drag her out. When she came out to change into her tap shoes, I offered her the choice of putting tap shoes on and staying to be a good listener or putting boots on and going home. She chose to stay and proceeded to wow me with twenty solid minutes of near-perfect dance. They were practicing for their upcoming recital (dancing to I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus) and she was amazing. Later, she explained to me that it wasn't really a make-up class, because they didn't wear any make-up.

The rest of today, we stayed inside. Jemma took a nap and Annie played with her jewelry and hair accessories before coming to find me when her rest time was up. I was lying in my bed, reading. She climbed in with me and we somehow started talking about school, and how she'd eventually go for the whole day and even eat lunch there. She started rattling off the grades - "And then I'll be in first grade, and then second grade, and then . . . ." and I explained how after fifth grade she'd go to middle school, and after middle school she'd go to high school. She was rapt with attention, her eyes big.

"And THEN what???"

"And then you'll go to college."

"Where will college be?" she asked.

"I don't know. Wherever you decide you want to go."

"And I'll live there? And eat lunch there?" She seemed thrilled by this possibility.

"Yep," I said. "And you'll meet lots of new people and make new friends and learn so many things."

"But can I come home if you invite me?" she asked. And I know she asked that because we've been trying to explain lately how you have to be invited to play at friend's houses and not just call them up and ask to come over, but suddenly real tears were rolling down my cheeks. Talking about it that way made it seem like it's all going to go by so fast, in a snap, and then I'll have a daughter who may or may not deign to visit me at Thanksgiving, crash at our house for part of a summer.

After that, we played college. She put some books in her backpack and drove away on the Wiggles red car. She called me on her pink princess cell phone, and I invited her to come home for Thanksgiving. She accepted. She did not bring home a carful of laundry.

********************

While we waited for our peanut butter cookies to bake before dinner, Annie drew with crayons at the dining room table. I was washing dishes and could hear her singing The ABC's to herself. "A, B, C, D, E" and then she'd stop. A second later: "A, B, C, D, E, F" and she'd stop again. Each time, she'd add one more letter. When I went to see what she'd drawn, I saw why she'd been singing that particular song to herself.

Practicing for Thanksgiving . . . ?

2008-11-25T18:12:00.000-08:00

Hoping that actual Coke will shoot out of this play pop bottle.

All dressed up for the big Thanksgiving meal.

Oh, for dessert I just whipped up some peanut butter cookies while wearing my pink spangled dress and a tiara.

What? Stop judging my nap hair.

Doesn't everyone clean up Thanksgiving dinner by vacuuming while wearing a Snow White costume, a plastic rosary, and striped Hello Kitty socks?

Weekend Silliness

2008-11-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

Lazy Sunday Morning

2008-11-23T05:47:00.000-08:00

We spent all day yesterday hosting two sets of friends, one for lunch and the horrid Michigan game, the other couple for dinner after the girls went to bed. The great thing about hanging out with our friends who don't have their own children is that we get to talk about all sorts of other, interesting things and get out of parent mode for a little bit. The not-as-great thing about it is that, because they don't have kids, they want to do things like just watch football on the couch all afternoon or stay at our house until 11:30 p.m. because nobody is going to wake them up at 6:30 a.m. the next morning.

So I'm a little exhausted, I have a sink full of dirty dishes, and Annie did wake me up at 6:30 this morning. That's when I made the executive decision that we'd be skipping church today. Instead, I bundled us up (Jason and Jemma were still sleeping) and took her to the coffee shop because we're out of espresso. On the way there, I looked back and saw her staring dreamily out the window with a little half-smile on her face.

"What are you smiling about?" I asked.

"I was just thinking . . . when we get home, I'll drink my vanilla milk and then I'll play wedding girl with Daddy and then I'll give him a big kiss when we get married."

"So you were just thinking about how much you love Daddy?"

She smiled. "Yeah."

"He's a pretty great Daddy," I said."

She smiled again. "Yeah." Pause. "Except when he goes to Costco!"

GM Employee's Daughter

2008-11-21T17:34:00.000-08:00

My mom and I were talking on the phone this week about layoffs at her company, the general state of the economy, and what might happen to my dad's retirement pension and health care if GM goes bankrupt. My dad worked there for thirty-some odd years - his whole working life - and I never remember him missing a day of work. My parents have never had lots of extra money, but somehow there was always enough to take family vacations, buy me my first car, help with college tuition, and pay for my wedding.

Why? Because my parents do not waste money. They do not eat out very much; they do not buy trendy clothes; they do not go to Starbucks; they do not fly often; they do not buy anything without doing a lot of research and coupon-gathering. Things they do include: rinse out and re-use plastic ziploc baggies; wear clothes until they aren't nice enough to wear anymore, not just until they go out of style; cook simple things from scratch; knit; sew; take care of their own lawn; pay all their bills on time; pay their debt off early; save their money.

So when my mom and I were talking, I was thinking two things. First, I was thinking that the auto companies have messed up - paid their executives WAAAAAY too much for waaaay too long, fought fuel-efficiency standards with lobbyists at every turn, shipped jobs overseas to pay cheaper wages - and don't deserve to be bailed out. If you're a company, you take a risk. If you win, you win; if you lose, you lose. Right?

But then I was thinking, what will happen to all those people? My dad, other people's dads, single moms, whole families who will lose their health insurance and their income and their retirement funds, all at once. I wonder if the beautiful, exceptional school I once taught at and still love will even be able to keep its doors open? I wonder what will happen to Detroit, to Michigan?

I was torn.

Two days later, I read this amazing post that says it all so much better than I could even think it. If nothing else, it's another perspective on the situation. And no matter what, it's given me another chance to stop and be so incredibly grateful for the things - material and not - that my dad and mom have given to me by raising me the way they did.

Home From a Poetry Reading

2008-11-20T17:48:00.001-08:00

I want to sneak into your room at night
sit on the edge of your bed
watch you sleep
your nightlight tilted on its side
an orange glow on your cheek
notice how your profile
looks just the same as it did in your ultrasound picture
four years ago
just the same.

Homeschooling

2008-11-19T16:46:00.001-08:00

Don't underestimate the ability of a former 2nd grade teacher to pull off some crafty projects with her own kids these days. Yesterday afternoon, we had fun with some clear glass ornaments and acrylic paint, squirting various Christmas colors inside and then rolling them around on newspaper to coat the insides with stripes and swirls. Good grandparent Christmas presents, no? We had fun doing it.

This afternoon, I used all my little-kid-party-throwing experience to host a short-but-sweet neighborhood cookie party. The theme was pink and blue, as in, "Will Miss Heidi's baby be a boy or a girl?" The kids frosted and decorated their cookies with pink and blue toppings, the mommies drank champage or coffee, and Miss Heidi revealed that Jonathan will be having a brother in April. We're so excited for them! And tired, after having the whole neighborhood inside our house for just an hour. (I'll be vacuuming up little pink and blue sprinkles for a few days, I think.)

Dear Santa,

2008-11-18T10:58:00.000-08:00

I have been very, very good this year. In addition to the things I have already asked you for in the list that is posted on the refrigerator:

-doll whose hair I can do
-Sleeping Beauty wedding dress
-wedding shoes
-pretend Baby Bjorn
-kitty in a purse from the bookstore
-a baby that talks or cries
-a big dollhouse with lots of furniture
-Cinderella necklace, like the one I got Ava for her birthday
-flavored chapsticks

I would also like one of everything that is in the FAO Schwartz catalog that came to my house yesterday. (Remember, I have been very, very good. I never call anyone "poopy" or kick my sister in the face because she is hogging the etch-a-sketch or jump on the couch or hide when it is time to have a bath or . . . . Nope. I don't do any of that.)

And because I don't want to share any of it with my pesky little sister, I would actually like two of everything, so that she can have her own Madame Alexander dolls, Vera Wang Special Edition Bride Barbie, giant $500 train sets, triple strollers, Fancy Nancy dolls, and everything else.

Also one of every American Girl Doll from the catalog that my mom tried to sneak into the recycling pile a few weeks ago but which I found and clutched to my bosom for 3 days straight.

Only 37 days 'till Christmas!

Sincerely,
ANNiE

Because I Like to Redistribute the Wealth

2008-11-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

. . . or maybe just share the hilariousness . . . whatever. I saw the link long, long ago on another friend's blog, and for the longest time, I didn't click through on it purely because I didn't like the word "fug." It's an icky word, right?

But then for whatever reason - boredom, children to ignore, a luxurious 20 minutes to myself - I clicked on it one day a week or two ago, and now I am totally, completely hooked. When I am grouchy, sad, or fixated on some Real Life Problem, it takes about five minutes of this to noticeably cheer me up. I am not into tabloids, I do not watch trashy reality TV, I have no idea who half the people on the cover of US Weekly are, and yet: trust me. This, like the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate at Starbucks, will change your life.

You're welcome.

GRAM

2008-11-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

It snowed this morning in a pretty, harmless way, blanketing the yards with a lovely white but melting on the pavement so as not to be icy and scary. We stopped at Kava House for coffee after church and then drove all around Heritage Hill and the fancier parts of our town, generally feeling cozy and wintry in spite of the fact that the girls spent much of that time arguing over every possible topic (A: "It's cold." J: "Nuh-uh" A: "Yes IT IS!" etc. because they can really argue about anything. It's like a sport for them).

By this afternoon, it was less pretty and cozy, more ugly and rainy. I read my Parents' Magazine while Jemma napped and Annie tried on one million "accessories" in her bedroom during quiet time, then decided that I needed to do something uplifting and interesting with my afternoon instead of watching The Food Network, half-doing various cleaning projects, and being annoyed with bored, aimless children. So I took Annie to the art museum.

She'd never been there before, so I explained how it was a place where only grown-ups and big girls get to go, how you have to look with your eyes and not touch, how it would be just like in the Olivia book. I let her wear some lip gloss. She carried her spangly purse.

When we got there, two women were playing classical piano duets and Annie was instantly mesmerized. She wanted to sit down and watch, so we did, and she swung her legs in time to the music. Then we wandered around, holding hands and talking about some of the art. She wanted nothing to do with the photography exhibit. She loved the giant, modern art pieces best. She asked me lots of questions about portraits ("Mom, why does that girl look sad?" about a Cassatt, "What is WRONG with that face?" about a Picasso). She sat right down on the second floor, crossed her legs, and watched the piano concert through the glass balcony. I sat next to her and admired her poise.

But if you asked her what her favorite thing was, she would say it was the gift shop. We sat in the kids section of it for at least half an hour, paging through books about artists, playing with the soft baby toys, admiring the design of almost everything. I told her she could pick one thing to bring home for herself and one for Jemma. And then she found them: the scented pencils. It's funny, because there really couldn't be a more perfect gift for a girl who both loves to draw and loves to SMELL THINGS. And I had just read about them (maybe in my Parents' Magazine?) and thought it would be a fun stocking stuffer for her. She smelled every single scent and finally chose Candy Cane for herself and Sugar Cookie for Jemma ("because her cheeks smell like cookies"). I scored a couple teacher gifts for Christmas, and our art museum outing was complete.

Playing the Odds

2008-11-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

Jemma has been semi-interested in The Potty for months now. (I assume this stems from her desire to be like Annie in all possible ways because I surely do not want to "do" potty training again just yet. I'm still worn out from the last time.) Once or twice a day, she heads into the bathroom and says, "Paahtaaaay!" and I say, "Really? Why don't you just go in your diaper?" and she says, "Chair! Chair!" and tries to put the potty-training seat on the toilet by herself. So I stop what I'm doing, put the damn seat on, and take off her pants and diaper.

She sits proudly, happily on the seat for between 5 and 10 seconds. Nothing ever happens, not ever, not in at least 100 times of her sitting on the seat. She smiles, yells, "All done! Wipe!" and unrolls half the roll of toilet paper and tries to shove it down the potty seat hole. I am no longer amused by any of this, but I feel like I must indulge her.

So the other night, I got her naked and put her in the tub. "Paahtaaay!" She looked at me expectantly. I looked at her, all wet and slippery and thought for one second of scooping her out and putting her on the toilet. But I didn't believe her because, again, she's never, ever actually done anything while she's on there.

"Potty?" I asked. "Really?"

"Paaahtaaay."

"Just go in the tub then," I said, calling her bluff. And instantly, she squatted in the water and turned it yellow.

Lucky

2008-11-14T16:25:00.000-08:00

I have now officially become one of those moms who forces her children to be outside any time the weather is not downright terrible. Of course, this summer and fall it was glorious and we were out for lots of hours every day - walking places, at the park, at the pool, in the sprinkler, riding bikes and scooters - but now that it's sort of winter, I'm still at it. Only, my standards have fallen. This morning, for example, I took advantage of the approximately 7 minutes of sunshine after dropping Annie off at school by popping Jemma into the jogging stroller and getting in a decent run. Now, anytime it's over 40 degrees and not technically raining (even if the sky is black and everything is wet because it was previously raining), I'm all "Hey! It's nice out! Let's go play outside!"

Yesterday, this got me into trouble.

I heard Jemma wake up from her nap ridiculously early (before 2:00), and I knew that Annie had never fallen asleep in her room, so I switched on The Weather Channel (old lady, I know) to confirm if what looked like semi-sunny, semi-warm conditions were, indeed, going to continue throughout the afternoon. And right there on the radar, it showed South Haven, location of our much-loved vacation home. (Ahem.) Next, it showed the seven-day forecast, which featured a daily dose of ever-colder temperatures combined with rain and snow. My brain went into overdrive, and in less than a minute, I had convinced myself that it would be an awesome idea to pack up the girls, jet down to South Haven, and do all the raking that needed to be done before the snow sets in. Why waste a perfectly good Saturday dragging the whole family down there to do it in the sleet? I would just throw a few things in the car (rake, soccer balls, snacks), pop the girls in, and be back in time for dinner.

We were there by 3:00 and the skies were indeed sunny. I brought the girls to the backyard, where they were delighted by the swingset for the first fifteen minutes. I began raking - tons and tons of wet, heavy, rotting leaves - and quickly realized that I should have brought many other things along: gloves, crappy shoes and pants, a sheet, another adult, perhaps a leaf-blower . . . . yeah, I was that desperate. When I found myself standing knee-deep in a giant pile of leaves that represented about 1/5 of the backyard, I switched my plan. I decided I'd rake the backyard leaves into a giant pile on the old garden and just leave them there to rot. Then I'd focus on the front yard and rake all those leaves to the curb.

So I'm raking, furiously raking, and I'm sweating and my socks are trashed and I'm wishing I'd changed out of my favorite jeans or at least brought along something else, but I'm just not organized like that. Instead of traditional raking, I'm doing a move where I stand in the middle of the giant pile I've made and use my rake like a golf club to fling the leaves forward, slowly moving the entire pile towards the front yard. I'm thinking it's a great core workout. I'm getting a blister on my right thumb. I'm making progress, but I'm stopping every five minutes or so because:

Annie touched squirrel poop;
Annie needs to go in the house to pee;
Annie took Jemma's ball away and ran around the yard with it until Jemma cried;
Annie won't push Jemma on the swing;
Annie won't share the pretzels with Jemma;
Annie thinks it's funny to lock herself in the front porch and scream at me from inside;
Annie is trying to get Jemma to go play underneath the deck.

I finally reached my breaking point with Annie. I threw my rake down and marched to get her off the front steps, intending to put her in her carseat for a time-out until she could leave Jemma alone and/or listen to me. But as I was turning to carry her down the steps, my shoe slid on a wet leaf and I started to fall forward. I staggered, pulling Annie's head in toward my chest, and managed to land in a crouch position, my left leg bent, my right knee coming down squarely on the cement. Those jeans? My favorites? They have a hole in them, now. (I do have a few designer Citizens of Humanity fibers stuck in my knee today, though, amid the scabs, so I guess I can think of them as being a part of me from now on . . .)

I managed to finish the front yard, sort of, and decided around 5:00 to leave one whole swath of back yard untouched because the girls were All Done. As I was literally throwing things back into the Subaru, I was so frustrated - fuming, feeling sorry for myself, upset with Annie, and, yes, still pissed about my jeans. My knee hurt, I was thirsty, I was hungry, and I was mad at myself for thinking that any of this would be a good idea.

We stopped at my parents' for dinner, which was very brief but also very calming, and I brought the girls home and tucked them in. While I waited for The Office to start, I leafed through a recent O Magazine (because, again, I'm an old lady), and was brought up short by an article by Martha Beck. She started off by relating how hard it is for her to summon sympathy when others complain to her of "First World problems." (Her examples were a delay in scheduling cosmetic surgery and the difficulty in finding a good lawn service.) And I realized, that's what I have: First World problems. It's hard to find time to do the yardwork at our other house? I put a hole in my fancy, expensive jeans? My pre-schooler is acting like a pre-schooler?

It was a little wake-up call, and I'm hoping it might get me to stop complaining so much about the little things. There are bigger things; there are people who are struggling every day with things I've never had to face and probably never will. I'm still going to get annoyed with things, but I'm going to try to have more perspective on what my problems are (small), and what real problems are (big).

So I tended my wounds with Hershey Kisses, a good beer, and an hour of Thursday night TV. Today, I have blisters on my hand, but I am inside with my family on a chilly November night, and I have everything I really need, and more.

Problems, Solutions

2008-11-13T04:08:00.000-08:00

For weeks now, maybe a couple months, Annie has been right on the verge of completely giving up her nap. (Here is where Sarah feels oh-so-sorry for me, poor me, whose four-year-old is FINALLY stopping the nap . . . ) And I know, I know: she's FOUR. It's really not that I even mind that she gives it up, because she'll go days and sometimes weeks without it, and now that I've come to expect that she's going to do an hour of "quiet time" and then come out to play, I actually enjoy the time we have together while Jemma's still sleeping. I just wish I knew she was totally, completely over it so that we could plan our days a little differently (afternoon playdates, anyone?).

But.

Approximately once every week or two, Annie becomes a total wreck. She starts out first thing in the morning, yelling, flailing, falling apart. BECAUSE SHE'S BEEN GETTING UP AT SIX AND IS EXHAUSTED. Yesterday was one of those days. After breakfast, around 8:30, she got back in her bed and said, "I want my doop." But since she had school at 9:00 (for which we were late because she refused to get her boots on and ran away to hide behind the living room chair every time I suggested it), an 8:30 a.m. nap was not in her future.

After school, the drama continued. First she laid right out on the carpet in her classroom and refused to put her coat on, then she informed me she was going to "sit right here in this chair and not go home with you, poopy. Throw-up. Stinky." The ride home was continued awesome, as were our first ten minutes or so inside the house. Annie ended up eating lunch alone in her room, Where The Wild Things Are style. When she was done, she climbed into bed and fell promptly asleep at 12:45.

She woke up two hours later, feeling and acting a million times better, and Jemma woke up a little after three. We drew pictures together, danced to Christmas music (no, it is not too early to listen to Christmas music), and had a fun afternoon inside despite the cold rain. I made dinner around 5:00, we ate together, and then I looked at the clock. It was 5:22.

Since both girls had taken good naps, I figured I had another two hours to kill before I could start the bedtime routine. It was dark, it was raining, and we were tired of being in the house together. Ahh, days of taking a walk after dinner, I miss you already.

So, we went to the pool. I packed their jammies so we could shower there and just pop them in bed when we got home. And they loved it. We take them all the time, but last night was the first time we'd ever gone when it was dark, and they thought it was awfully fun to look out the big glass windows at the dark night, feeling like they were staying up late and getting away with something. Annie jumped in and let herself go under a couple of times (which is big progress for her) and Jemma just hung out with me in her life jacket, squirting a little fish at my head. We went in the sauna for just a minute to warm up after we were done swimming, and then I blew-dry their hair before we put their rain boots on with their jammies and headed back home in the night, all cozy in the car, listening to more Christmas music. Watching them clomp down the gym hallway, damp and rosy-cheeked, I loved them so much.

More Tuesday Library Adventures

2008-11-11T10:41:00.001-08:00

It being Tuesday, of course we spent the morning at the library, exchanging our last round of books for a new bunch. As usual, there was a little table set up with an art project and the girls spent some time there. We were sitting around this table, coloring with crayons and colored pencils, when Annie started to tell me about her drawing.

"It's a boy," she begins.

"Mmmm-hmmm," I say, and try to keep Jemma from putting the crayons in her mouth.

"It's a boy, but with crazy hair, because he's mad. But he still has a penis."

I try to be low-key. This is a word she knows and we are attempting to treat it like all the other billions of words she knows - matter-of-factly, routinely, casually.

"Yep," I respond.

She gets a little louder, glancing at me to see if this topic is still OK. "He's a boy, so he has a penis," she repeats.

"Yep, okay," I say normally, but I start looking around, trying to assess how many other moms and kids are paying attention to this conversation.

"We'll have to show Daddy my picture when he gets home, because he'll know it's a boy because he has a penis, too." I secretly start praying that we don't have to begin discussing any specific penises here in the library, because, while we reached the age a few months ago where we ended any opposite-sex family nudity, the last time Annie had anything to say about Jason's penis, it was: "Daddy, I don't like your penis."

Thankfully, I get her on another track, and we eventually wrap up the library visit. We're riding back up in the elevator, and I ask Annie to push the UL button (for upper level) so I can get my coat on and because she usually LOVES to push the buttons. But she refuses, and while I'm negotiating with her to do it, Jemma sprints over and pushes the lowest, most accessible button, which is the Emergency Call button. I say, "Jemma, NO!" then hear what sounds like a phone on speakerphone begin dialing - the police station, I presume. I frantically press the UL button. Annie starts crying: "Mom! Mom!!!! What's going to happen?" as I try to tell her how we have to go tell someone that we're fine, that there's no emergency.

We finally get out on the upper level and I try to drag everyone over to tell a library employee what's happened, but Annie is flailing around on the floor behind me and asking a billion questions. I give her The Look while apologizing to the library employee, and a lot of people have to come get into the elevator with us to see if, indeed, the fire department is being paged to rush to the library elevator. Thankfully, no. After I apologize a hundred more times, we walk outside toward the car, Annie scolding Jemma ("Jemma! You are NEVER, EVER going to be allowed to ride in the elevator again. Do you understand? Jemma, we don't push that button!") and myself ("Mom, when I was trying to ask you a question, you were giving me a Not Very Nice Look!") the whole way.

And it wasn't even 11:00.

More Probects

2008-11-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

It's funny; even though Annie's four now, there are still a few words she says incorrectly. "Projects" is one of them (she says "probects" instead); she also says Shoppee Coff for Coffee Shop and Picuter for Computer. Here's a project we worked on all of last week, prompted by the fact that she was asking me Every Single Day, "Mom, how many more days until Christmas?" So I wrote all the numbers on separate sheets of paper with crayon and then let the girls watercolor over the numbers. We punched holes in the top of each card, strung them up, and hung them in our dining room, where Annie takes off one number each morning at breakfast. It's like a homemade, disposable Advent calendar, only it had 47 days instead of the traditional 25 or 30.

Status Updates

2008-11-10T16:29:00.000-08:00

Poor, poor blog.

Now that it's been nearly a week since I've taken the time to post any new thoughts, the little tidbits swirling around in my head seem . . . . pointless. Unrelated. Shall I recap the in-law's four-day visit? Talk about how, now that the freezing temperatures have ended my running outside and forced me to return to the gym, I am remembering just how much I hate running on a treadmill? Ponder how Annie can eat two pancakes, sausage, an egg, and a pear for breakfast on Saturday morning and still weigh only 29 pounds? List the many, many random subjects over which the girls have recently argued? Describe their new habit of teaming up on me with what I now refer to as The Naughty Giggle?

Maybe later. For now, I am just glad: to have my house back to myself after four days of guests (helpful though they were); to have raked some wet leaves this afternoon while the girls ran up and down the sidewalk; to have eaten a cozy dinner with the family and watched some Sound of Music on the couch; that there is an apple crisp baking right now in the oven; to settle in for an evening of The Daily Show and talk with Jason; and mostly, for all the little things that make life so good.

Things I Didn't Do Yesterday:

2008-11-05T10:39:00.001-08:00

1. Feed, clothe, and entertain my children. That job went to Jason, pre-9:00 a.m., and then my lovely, helpful neighbors Heidi and Sarah, who got me through the day when I was feeling terrible.

2. Eat anything but Perrier and graham crackers.

3. Go anywhere more than 5 minutes away from a bathroom, except to vote.

4. Clean my house. And after just ONE day of letting things go, it's officially a big mess. Bonus: in-laws arriving Friday morning.

5. Go to my Tuesday night yoga class.

6. Go to Meg's fun election party.

But, today is a new day, in so many senses of the word: new president-elect, random stomach illness over, and a high of 72 degrees. We walked Annie to school this morning because it was just so beautiful and we had to do it one last time before the real winter weather sets in. After school, I raked the front yard while the girls played in shorts and bare feet. November 5th, 2008, you are a very good day.

Halloween 2008

2008-11-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

The scene that welcomed trick-or-treaters to our house last night.

Chicken Jemma in a rare moment of wearing the head part of her costume.

Annie's preschool class in costume (notice how all the girls are wearing the most fancy, princess-y costumes possible, while the boys are all wearing the most black, dark, scary costumes possible).

Annie, in full "wedding girl" regalia.

A treat: how much fun it is to get your child all costumed up for such a special day. I loved it! The weather was perfect, the neighborhood Halloweenie Roast was fun, and it was the first year that both girls really got into the spirit of the holiday. I am already kind of looking forward to next year.

Spying

2008-10-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight after dinner, we decided to carve pumpkins. We got everything ready (newspaper, tools, pumpkins, warm cider) on the dining room table. Jason and I started drawing away with the Sharpie, carving off the tops, scooping out the yuck and the seeds. A few minutes into it, we noticed that the girls had totally lost interest in the process (knives too sharp, pumpkin yuck too yucky to touch) and were nowhere to be seen or heard.

I left Jason carving at the table and snuck down the hall towards Annie's room. I peeked in the door, and there they were, lying side by side on her bed. With her MagnaDoodle, Annie was teaching Jemma how to write the letter A, uppercase and lowercase, which she is just learning about at school. I stood there for a few minutes, and they were totally content. I think it's one of the very first times that I've found them doing something collaborative, positive, and quiet together.

Now, the pumpkins are carved, the girls are snug in bed (readying themselves for another night of random coughing, I'm sure), and we're tidying the house, and getting ready for a big, fun weekend ahead: the neighborhood Halloweenie Roast, trick-or-treating with the girls, houseguests, a "friends" Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, helping in Annie's Sunday School class . . . I'm sure we're going to be exhausted and full of sugar when it's over.

Speaking of sugar, I sense a necessary raiding of the Halloween candy for tonight's new Office and 30 Rock episodes. Do Kit-Kats and Chimay go together?

Jemma, 22 Months

2008-10-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

What with all my podium-tapping and lecture-giving yesterday, I failed to notice that it was the 27th and, therefore, another month gone by in the life of Jemma. Also, I never know the date. Also, I admit to sometimes digging through Annie's preschool bag two minutes before we're supposed to leave for school in the morning, instead of right when she brings it home the time before. So there: a few confessions to start this off.

Jemma. Whereas a month ago, I was still in shock that she was inching closer and closer to the two-year mark, today I am not surprised at all. She looks like she's two. She acts like she's two. She's even starting to grow into a few 18-24 month clothes, which tends to be the size my children wear until they're at least two-and-a-half! Must be all the . . . waffles?

She knows exactly what she wants, but tries to get it without having to ask. This leads to her repeating a sound or a single world over and over ("have it," "hold it," "more," and the dreaded "my") until I get it for her. I am trying to slow down, trying to force her to use a nice tone and ask for the object by name, followed by the word "please." This works, sometimes. She hates to get dressed, have her diaper changed, wear shoes, be strapped into the stroller, wear mittens, have her face washed off after eating. She loves to brush her teeth, stand up in her highchair, color, jump to music, ride the red tricycle really fast down the driveway and turn at the last second, talk on the phone, put things away where they belong, take care of dolls, and cuddle.

We've started giving her time-outs. When we go back in her room after a minute or two, she looks at us, holds her arms up to be picked up, and says, "Sorry." And whenever Annie has done something that requires her to apologize to Jemma, Jemma says, "Sorry" to Annie instead. She's just so good-natured; she wants everyone to get along.

These past few weeks since school started have been filled with a lot of Mommy-Jemma time that we never had before (last year, she was taking her morning nap while Annie was at school). We hang out together, often walking to the grocery store or taking a run in the jogging stroller. We have a snack while we watch some Sesame Street. We run errands and hit Starbucks (coffee, vanilla milk) at the mall or Target. We read books, build with blocks, draw with chalk, and do all those one-on-one things that she used to miss out on.

The Obligatory Politics Post

2008-10-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

For the first 17 years of my life, I lived in what might possibly be one of the most conservative small towns in the country. At the time that I lived there, I believe it held the honor of "Most Churches Per Capita;" for sure, there literally IS one on every corner of the downtown and I didn't personally know anyone who didn't attend weekly. There were mostly blond, Dutch people. There was exactly one black family, and then another family who had adopted some African-American children. Also, one family who had adopted some Korean children. That was the diversity, in toto. Also living in this town was, as far as I could tell, one Democrat. She was my high school Spanish teacher, and people referred to her as "Crazy Jo Bird" because she was pretty much the only one who ever wrote liberal-leaning letters to the editor during election seasons. (Plus, she frequently wore large, chili-pepper earrings and said, "Yowsa!" a lot, so she maybe was a tiny bit crazy, for real.) Until last year, absolutely no alcohol was ever sold in the city limits. My parents still live there, and when I've been back recently, the yard signs go: McCain, McCain, McCain, McCain, McCain.

*****************************

After graduating from Hope and marrying the love of my life at the ripe old age of 21, we moved to Ann Arbor. Even though it's just on the other side of the state, a little over 2 hours away, it was like a different world. Our next door neighbors hailed from San Francisco. He was Jewish, she was Unitarian. They were grad students getting their MBA and MSW, respectively. She kept her last name. In walking distance from our house, there was a People's Food Co-op, a huge farmer's market, a vegan/organic bakery, stores that sold bongs, my yoga studio, and The University of Michigan. There is a huge Art Fair there every year. I was often the only blond person in the room. People biked to work. People were vegetarians. People were, generally speaking, NOT Republicans. When we visited a few weeks ago for the Homecoming football game, the yard signs went: Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama.

*****************************

While I'm not claiming to have traveled the world or anything here, I think it's safe to say that I've seen a pretty broad spectrum of political opinions. And while I really can tolerate a pretty wide variety of those opinions, what I can't take is a lot of the scorn and hostility that sometimes gets wrapped up in the message. Just this week, I've read a blog post entitled, "Why No One With a Uterus Should Vote for John McCain" and received a e-mail forward from a family member that ended by comparing Obama to Hitler back in 1932. And I'm like, REALLY? NO ONE with a uterus? You can't understand how, maybe, someone's worldview might lead them to agree with the majority of his platforms? Also: A Hitler/Obama comparison? Words fail me, there.

I try to read a variety of sources, watch the debates first-hand, and go into conversations with an open mind, because my mind really HAS been changed on some things in the last 10-15 years. I went to an Obama party last month, which was very positive and which I loved; I watched a Catholic Vote video just this week. And one thing I've read recently has stuck with me - not a Newsweek article or a blog or a Daily Show interview, but a "teaching" from our priest, of all things. In in, he writes about each human being's right to have life, and to have life to the fullest, and how it pertains to this election. He challenges Catholics who are Democrats to be working within their party and their government to recognize the right to life of all citizens; he challenges Catholics who are Republicans to be working within their party and their government to promote the rights of those citizens to have life to the fullest. (He does not, happily, inform Catholics who have ever voted for a politician who has voted pro-choice that they will automatically be going to hell, like one letter I once received from a helpful family member did, because: AWESOME. THANKS.)

And then he says:

Stay clear of rhetoric that is filled with loathing of anyone – public official or private citizen – or of any party or group. Withdraw from any conversation in which one of the participants spews bitter resentment, unreasoned disdain, rancor or hatred of anyone or anything. When political conversations touch upon issues of importance to someone or upon concerns of great moral value, these conversations will seldom be without passion. But there is a difference between passion and rancor, between animated disagreement and loathing. You do not need to become an angry, resentful person to participate in political debate or to exercise your responsibilities as a citizen, but you will if you don’t distance yourself from those who foment it. In this same regard, examine the broadcast personages and programs you listen to.

This is a struggle for me, too, because I hate conflict and confrontation. It's hard for me to stay rational, because I get upset. But I'm going to try to do it sensitively - today, this week, indefinitely, because I think it's a skill and a grace I'd like to model for my children, and because I think that family and friends can disagree and still be kind. One week from now, we'll be on the eve of the election I've been the most passionate about, ever. And in between now and then, I anticipate getting more than a few e-mails, website links, and forwards from a variety of family and friends. All I'm saying is, Be Nice. Otherwise, I'll be tying on my Nikes to get my heart rate back down, running in the dark on the wet leaves, noticing how the yard signs here go: Obama, McCain, Obama, McCain, Obama, Obama.

On the Way Home From the Pool: A Conversation

2008-10-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

Annie: I'm cooold, Mom!

Me: Yeah, I bet. It's too bad you didn't want to wear a coat.

Annie: Mom! You wouldn't LET me wear a coat! (total lie)

Jemma: humming merrily

Annie: No, Jemma. You can't sing that. Only big girls can sing that.

Jemma: humming merrily

Annie: Jemma, only I can sing that.

Me: Annie, that's not true. Anyone may sing nicely in the car.

Annie: Jemma, stop singing! Please!

Me: Hey! Who wants to eat lunch when we get home?

Jemma: I do! I do!

Annie: I want to have peanut butter and jelly.

Me: Okay.

Annie: Mom, I SAID, I want to have peanut butter and jelly.

Me. Yep, I said you could.

Annie: When I get home, I'm going to put on my wedding dress and play wedding. I'll be the bride. Jemma, do you want to be the groom?

Jemma: No.

Annie: Jemma, do you want to hold my hand and walk down the aisle?

Jemma: No.

Annie: Jemma, you HAVE to play that with me! (Starts humming Trumpet Voluntaire) Mom, I want to have peanut butter and jelly when we get home, okay?

Jemma: starts humming

Annie: Jemma, NO! Only I can hum that! (Kicks off rain boots, takes off socks in a fury)

Jemma: kicks off rain boots, takes off socks in a fury

Annie: Mom, I'm cooooold!

Slacking

2008-10-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

I love Annie's dance teacher, Miss Amy. She is always happy and smiling, but in a calm, normal way, not a manic too-good-to-be-true way. She remembers Jemma's name and always gives her a stamp after class, too, for good measure. Yesterday, after the dancers came running out mid-class to change from ballet shoes to tap shoes, they ran back in and began spontaneously hugging each other while Miss Amy stood, holding the door open for the last stragglers. "When I see that, I think about how nice it must be for them to hug someone their own size," she said.

I like that perspective, because sometimes I forget that Annie and Jemma aren't just small people - they're coming at life from a whole different point of view than adults are. Things that are a big deal to me aren't even on their radar, while things I would never think to note matter greatly to them. I started thinking about how it would be to be THAT fascinated with everyone else's boo-boo's and Band-Aids, how satisfying it would be to say to myself on the way home from the mall, "And now I'll go home and have gum," and not need anything else for my own happiness for the rest of the afternoon.

We did go home, have gum, eat lunch, rest, and then played outside for the whole of what might have been one of the last gorgeous fall afternoons of this year. I look back at the pictures I took at the beach less than two weeks ago and I can't believe that there's SNOW in the 5-day forecast. Snow! So I sucked all the goodness out of last night: made what I will not-at-all-humbly say was The Best Pot Roast Ever, bundled the girls up for a long walk at dusk, "boo-ed" our neighbors by passing on a ghosty bag of treats after ringing their doorbell and hiding to watch them retrieve it, and watched the girls warm up in a "spooky" bath in the dark with a glow stick.

This morning, it's raining, and Jason took Jemma off to run some errands while Annie's at school. And instead of paying bills and washing the kitchen floor like I meant to, I'm up here on the computer with my coffee, letting my freshly-painted toenails dry, doing some on-line Christmas shopping, and getting down one more memory in the long string of moments I want to remember.

Ordinary

2008-10-22T18:33:00.000-07:00

Besides a fun morning playtime with Gina, Andrea, and their cute, cute kids, we mostly did ordinary things today: played outside, did "letter hopscotch," walked to the grocery store in the sunshine to buy roast chicken and stuffing for dinner, made some art projects with glitter glue, ate donut holes, and tried to keep the house going with laundry, dishes, etc. We collected more pretty leaves on our walk home from the store, and I felt lucky to be taking a quiet walk with my girls on such an ordinary fall afternoon. The sunshine made all the difference, and I was grateful for it while at the same time realizing how dim and dark the days ahead will be. Oh, winter, how I dread you.

After baths tonight, I let each girl pick a book and bring it into our bed so we could all read together, since Jason wasn't going to be home until much later. They grabbed books, climbed up, clutched their blankets, and snuggled back against the pillows to listen. Of course, it was my favorite moment of the day. Annie has lately been obsessed with the Madeleine books and shocked me one day last week by reciting the entire story, word for word, after we'd only had it from the library for a week or so. So tonight, we read Madeleine Goes to London, which she has not yet fully memorized. Jemma chose Curious George and the Bunny, and while she doesn't nearly recite the whole story, she follows along carefully and often says a word or two on each page: "shot," "all gone!," "sad," "string," etc. She also does this thing where she cups her hand as though she's holding the baby bunny during the part of the story that goes, "It was fun to hold a baby bunny!" It's so lovely to end the day all cozy, surrounded by my girls and their books.

Things That Are Ridiculous:

2008-10-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

-The names Annie has recently bestowed upon the imaginary kittens her stuffed animal has had: Leedy, Leechy, Seedy, Forty, Fifty, and Ben.

-The pseudonyms that Annie and Lucy assumed while playing the other day - Annie was "Wheatie" and Lucy was "Simone."

-The number of times I was awake with one child or another last night due to coughing, monsters, being "too hot," or just general neediness.

-The number of times per day I find one or both of my children walking around with a ball shoved up their shirt, pretending to be pregnant.

-Annie's current obsession with gum. After a weekend jam-packed with all sorts of spectacular events (her race, Meijer Gardens, parade, football game, etc.), she hopped out of the car this morning at school, ran up to Ben, and reported breathlessly: "Guess what? Yesterday . . . I had FOUR pieces of gum!"

-The elaborate story I have now invented about how difficult it is to buy gum; how you don't just march into the store and BUY it; how you have to get permission until you're a grown-up . . .help me out here, people. I need some way of keeping Annie from asking me for gum every 2.4 seconds for the rest of her life. She's had a taste and now she's totally addicted.

-The amount of drama involved in trying to plan our family vacation in February - e-mailing, researching, consulting with both sets of grandparents, trying to assess the quality of a condo by looking at sketchy internet photos. Someone other than me, please make a decision.

Enough, Already

2008-10-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Can't . . . Stop . . . Posting . . . Adorable . . . Fall . . . Pictures . . .

Annie's First Race

2008-10-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

Life has been a whirlwind lately, but a good, crisp whirlwind filled with football games, tailgate parties, parades, pumpkin-decorating and apple-eating, family photos, and happy afternoons outside marveling at the gorgeousness of it all.

This afternoon found us downtown for Annie's first race, the GR Kids Marathon. We (I) signed her up in early September and she's been running a mile (or so) about three times a week since then, sometimes at the track and sometimes just to the library and back or the grocery store and back or Starbuck's and back or . . . ANYWAY, the idea is that, by today, she's run 25 miles total. And then today she got to run the last 1.2 miles of her "marathon" on a race course downtown with about 1,000 other kids and their parents. She was so excited; for the last four or five days, she's been telling anyone and everyone, "I have a race on Saturday."

We picked up her packet, pinned on her bib number (ha! hilarious!), and lined up at the start to wait while Jason and Jemma went to find a good spot on the course from which to cheer. We stretched. We listened to a small, brave girl sing The Star-Spangled Banner surprisingly well. And then, we were off, running, holding hands, surrounded by other kids and parents under a beautiful blue October sky.

We crossed under the Start banner, still holding hands, and I was suddenly blinking back tears. There was just something so pure about watching her little four-year-old legs churn determinedly down that street that left me feeling incredibly lucky to be doing something I love with her - passing it on, so to speak. I do look forward to the days when she and Jemma are good at all sorts of things I've always sucked at (volleyball? spatial reasoning on standardized tests?); I think it will be a fun surprise to watch them enjoy things I've always hated. But for now, I get the exquisite pleasure of sharing my favorite things with them. And it makes me want to cry, a little.

I pulled it together. She ran the whole way. She got a medal and a T-shirt. After we crossed the finish line, I hugged her hard and she said, "Mom? When can I do another race?"

The Million-Dollar Question

2008-10-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

I just got home from book club. In between drinking wine, eating dill havarti, and actually discussing this month's book (Eat, Pray, Love), the discussion turned, predictably, to babies. Everyone in the group is a mom and we all feel fairly comfortable with one another - comfortable enough, I guess, that we were just polling the group: "Are you done?" Having babies, that is. A few people definitely are. The rest of us are in a weird limbo, throwing out percentages and feeling "75% sure" we're done, but not knowing what to do with that niggling doubt, the one that asks if you'll regret your little family of four later in life. Wondering just how you'd fit another person into your already-chaotic life. Wondering how it would feel to shut that door completely.

It's funny; I've been thinking about this very question since this weekend, when I packed away the most recent round of outgrown/wrong season clothes. I can think of better things to do with a Saturday night than spend an hour or so sorting clothes into one of six Rubbermaid bins, but I just can't quite give them away yet.

I was going along merrily, spending most of my time in the 12-18 month and 3T area with clothes that the girls have just outgrown. Then I got down to the part of the pile I just got back from loaning out to a new-ish niece. There in front of me was a little pink fleece snowsuit that both girls wore in their first few months; the orange knit hat Jemma wore home from the hospital, knit by a L&D nurse; the "big sister" t-shirt we gave Annie when she came to meet Jemma in the hospital. All of a sudden, instead of efficiently packing things away, I was sort of stroking various newborn items, wondering if, truly, no baby of mine would ever wear them again.

Let me say that I love my life right now, that I am really not a person who deals well with everything that goes along with birthing and raising and feeding a small baby - the sleep deprivation, the lack of free time, the inability to be alone for even a second without someone needing something from you. I feel like having a baby is like falling down a very deep hole, and it takes me a full year to dig myself back out again. Right now, I am relishing the balance that is emerging in my life. There's time, really, for exercise, date nights, lunch with friends, reading, writing - all the things that keep me sane. And when we're with the kids (which is still most of the time, mind you), they're actually fun to be around. They DO things. They interact with us and with each other. Not only am I not in the hole, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel-like existence I have been in since Annie was born, the one where my life revolves around the next naptime or nursing or bedtime. At the end of the tunnel is a place where I get to be just me for a few hours every day (when they're both in school) and a better, more engaged mom when they're home. There are a lot of days when I look around and I'm fairly sure we're done.

But then . . . the hats. The snowsuit. Who knows if having another baby would be the right thing for our family or the development that finally put Mommy over the edge (because some days, she's pretty close). I think I am destined to live in the weird limbo for a while longer, pondering, questioning, wondering What If. I wonder how you finally make that call, if there is a moment when you just know what's right for you. I marked this quote in Eat, Pray, Love: "That's the thing about a human life - there's no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed." I'll ponder that, I guess, as I sit up here with my Rubbermaid bins of pink clothes.

A Tradition: October Day at the Beach

2008-10-13T06:39:00.001-07:00

Commence the Time-Sucking

2008-10-11T11:41:00.001-07:00

After weeks of incessantly mocking Jason ("What are you, a teenager?"), I have done the inevitable and signed up for Facebook. I am mildly ashamed (what am I, a teenager?), but apparently not so ashamed that it prevented me from signing up. Now, if I could only find one single picture of myself taken within the last two years or so, I could add it to my profile. Off to hunt, and to see which interesting people from my past come out of the virtual woodwork.

Bad Hair Day

2008-10-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

Jemma's: full of sucker, which I had to take away from her because she wouldn't stop going down the slide with it in her mouth. My reward for preventing some type of life-threatening injury? A ten-minute indoor/outdoor tantrum, complete with foot stomping, spinning in circles, and banging on the door. Also, sticky toddler hair.

Annie's: decorated with some type of shiny bright blue pipe cleaner that HAD to be twisted up a certain way for Blue Day at school. When I asked her if she wanted to wear a hat for playing on the playground this morning she said, "Mom, no. It would ruin my hair."

Mine: semi-curly and messy because I was too weak to do the round-brushing and blow-drying and flat-ironing required to make it lie correctly after my shower this morning. Also, full of glitter after decorating my front-stoop pumpkins, which I could secretly do all day long. Mmmm, fall.

Colors

2008-10-08T18:50:00.003-07:00

A few we've seen recently:

Fall colors on our drive to and from Ann Arbor on Saturday. Jason and I headed out, coffee on board, to his five-year dental school reunion. We tailgated with old friends, drank beer, tossed the football around, and watched Michigan play on a quintessential fall day in one of our favorite cities. It was so, so good to be there, and even better to catch up with old friends. Zingerman's, you never let us down, either.

Purple, as in the color of Flintstone vitamin that is most coveted by both girls and led to a full-blown temper tantrum by Jemma today at lunch when I sadly informed her that we were out of purple and down to just red and orange. She loves purple, loves to whisper it when asked what her favorite color is, loves to demand it while coloring in her high chair on a rainy afternoon. Red and orange are just not going to cut it.

Blue and gold at Friday night's home football game. We walked merrily down our street and just followed the crowd into the stands one block away to watch our home team score lots of points. The girls were all bundled up in their little coats and hats; they sat snug and STILL between us, sucking away at the mother of all treats, THE RING POP. We held mittened hands on the way home, tucked them into bed while their cheeks were still rosy and sticky.

Black and white and read all over tonight after dinner, when the girls took turns raiding the bookshelves in Jemma's room and reading books on the rug on her floor. Jemma brings me her favorites: "Cow," "George," "Babies," "Carl." I read them to her, and when I don't, she throws a fit. Annie sits down with Five Silly Monkeys and paraphrases the story, patiently counting the monkeys on each page. She pretends not to notice that I am watching her.

No, Really, It's Saving Us a Ton of Money

2008-10-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

Jason went to Costco this morning to buy eggs.

Good Reads

2008-10-03T10:36:00.001-07:00

As you can see, the pile of books next to my side of the bed is becoming ridiculous. A few recent thoughts I've had while reading some of these (and other) books:

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder: What am I even DOING with my life, besides piddling around in suburbia with a couple kids and one too many pairs of expensive jeans? Meanwhile, this Farmer guy is single-handedly saving Haiti.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman: Have both candidates for president read this book? They need to. Also, Thomas Friedman officially makes my top five in the list of People, Living or Dead, With Whom You'd Like To Have Dinner. So smart.

Parenting With Love and Logic: What???? You mean this near-constant-management-of-children thing is going to continue, unabated, right on through all the years they live with us?

Nearly Every Book I Read to Jemma: Do kids catch on to (and become suspicious of) the fact that roughly 70% of children's books end with the main character going to bed? At a certain point, I feel like the kids are going to call us on this not-so-subtle ruse to get them to sleep at night.

I Love You Forever (the non-creepy version)

2008-10-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

This morning, I got both girls dressed and packed up The Bag (ballet shoes, tap shoes, diaper and wipes for Jemma, snack for Jemma, water for them, water for me, wallet, phone, toys and books to entertain Jemma) and were were out the door at 9:10, walking to Annie's dance class with Jemma in the jogging stroller. After dance, we walked it to the grocery store, where I bribed the girls with donut holes through the store and the whole way home. I unloaded groceries, made lunch, switched the laundry, and put girls down for naps. While they were napping, I returned phone calls and started making dinner. Jemma woke up after just an hour - in turn, waking Annie up, who was taking her first nap of the week. We scrambled through the afternoon with the help of a visit from Lucy (she and Annie played 'having a baby in the hospital' with no intervention from me for almost an hour!) and some good cold-rainy-day music.

Through all of this, I consoled myself with the fact that Jason would be home to relieve me at 5:30 sharp, when I would take myself to yoga and come home for a relaxing evening. But 5:20 rolled around, and I hadn't even gotten the "I'm on my way home" phone call from Jason. At 5:30, when I should have been driving to yoga, I was feeding the girls dinner, and since it contained spinach, they didn't eat it, anyway.

After dinner (and after Jason had finally called to say he was running late and why didn't he just stop and get his hair cut, too?), I was trying to take the girls outside to play. I was following Jemma around, trying to get her put her pants back on for at least the fifth time today while hunting down hats and shoes, and it all began to seem absurd, too much to handle for so many hours straight. There are some days when I feel like parenting is secretly so fun, easy, and amazingly rewarding (these days are mostly in the summer, when the kids are healthy, adorable, and just happy to flail outside while I drink coffee and talk to other moms); there are other days when the minutes tick by sloooowly and every minor annoyance feels like a major transgression (these days are mostly in the winter, when the kids are sick and we're stuck inside). Today at 6:00 p.m., one of those minor annoyances prompted me to say aloud, to no one in particular, "Oh My Gosh!" in a voice full of impatience and disbelief that getting two children ready to go play in the front yard could take so long and be so chaotic.

Annie looked at me across the kitchen. "Being a mom is a lot of hard work, huh?" she said.

"Yeah, sometimes it is," I said.

"You're going to be my mom forever, though," she said, and smiled. And I crossed the room and hugged her, holding her little pink hat while Jemma sat on the floor and put her jean jacket on backwards.

"Yeah, I am."

Season Change

2008-10-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

Last night's yoga class left me focused, energized, and calm - just like good yoga is supposed to. I am sore, in spite of it being a "Back to Basics" class, but intend to go back. Frequently. I am thinking, this is what will get me through the dreaded winter, screw the cost, I will ask for it for Christmas.

So I went into this morning all Zen with my cup of green tea and semi-clean house and blow-dried hair. Jemma and I hung out and built tall block towers while Annie was at school. Then we went to the farmer's market and bought apples, pears, and pumpkins for the girls to decorate for our front stoop. I made some more applesauce, which made the house smell great. The clouds were low and dark all day but it never really rained, so we were able to play outside in the crisp air this afternoon after naptime (henceforth called Time For Jemma To Nap While Annie Sings Songs Vigorously In Her Room and Takes All The Wall Hangings Off The Wall And Changes Into Dirty Clothes From Her Laundry Hamper).

Just now, I'm returned from a walk by myself. I caught the tail end of the sunset and picked up a beautiful red leaf to give to Annie. As I passed the football field, the high school band was practicing. Lights were on in all the houses on our street, and the air smelled like someone was having the first fire of the year in their fireplace. Yep, it's fall, and I love it.

Moment of the Day

2008-09-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

All four of us snuggled in our bed, the girls fresh from the tub wearing matching purple pj's and holding their blankets, the rain drizzling outside, reading Goodnight Moon. (Worth the 750 "my!"s I had to endure for the previous 12 hours today.)

Bloopers

2008-09-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

We dropped Annie off at Sunday School this morning and then headed to church with Jemma. For some reason, taking just Annie to church goes fine. Taking just Jemma to church goes fine. Taking both girls to church does not go well at all, so we are very happy that Sunday School has begun, because I can't take the psychic torture that Jemma puts me though when I try to leave her in the nursery.

So: just Jemma. She played adorably throughout the first half of the hour, then started to get ancy. After we had gone up for communion, I was getting desperate. I let her take all her toys (strewn about the pew) and put them in this little side zippered pouch on my purse, thinking that when she finished putting them all in, she'd want to take them all back out, too. Nope. She zipped the pouch closed, said a loud "Bye-bye!" to the crowd in general, and went to swing my purse up on to her shoulder by its straps and walk away merrily. Only my purse weighs about 10-15 pounds, so when she swung it up to her shoulder and turned to walk away, the momentum propelled her out into the main aisle and knocked her flat on her face. "Whoa!" she said, as the crowd in general laughed.

We spent the rest of the day swimming at the indoor pool at the gym, gathering interesting leaves, and taking a long walk after dinner that turned into a Very Long Walk when we had to get Jemma out of the stroller to rescue her from Annie's pinching. Annie, who is now in bed without a story because she said, repeatedly, "I'm not talking to you, Mommy. You're a stinkyhead" as I was trying to get her into the tub tonight. When given the choice of using kind words in the bathroom with me or going to bed without a bath or a story, she chose going to bed without. Jason brought her to her room to put her pajamas on while I plunked Jemma into the tub. A minute later, Annie was back in the bathroom. "Sorry, Mommy," she said.

"Thanks, sweetie," I said.

"Daddy said I could brush my teeth first." Smiling a little nicely, a little triumphantly because she was not, indeed, going straight to bed as she had chosen.

"That sounds like a good idea," I said.

Then Annie held the toothbrush Jason had just given her one inch from her mouth. "Stinkyhead," she said quietly.

And off to bed she went, without brushing her teeth after all.

Jemma, 21 months

2008-09-27T17:03:00.001-07:00

Oops! We've been having such a spectacular day, what with neighbors cavorting in the front yard, making and eating this yummy bread and apple cider popsicles, drinking Ichabod pumpkin beer, and watching Michigan win their football game that I almost forgot to write about Jemma and who she is on the 21-month anniversary of entering the world.

She spent the day trying desperately to ride bikes and scooters that are far too big for her, then settling for scuttling, Flintstone-style, up and down the sidewalk on Annie's red tricycle. She is fast. She ate a piece of bacon cheddar bread while we were outside, and I swear she had it in her hand for a full hour before it was finally gone. She went down the slide a million times; toward the end of the day, she got brave and was going down head first, saying "Whoa" when she got to the bottom and then scrambling to do it again, anyway.

When we read books before naptime and bedtime, she has definite opinions about which ones she wants. "Pillar," she says for The Very Hungry Caterpillar (my favorite); "Babies," she says for Baby Faces (her favorite). Afterwards, she arranges her blanket up on my left shoulder so it drapes down my chest, then leans in and snuggles me for a minute before I sing to her and put her in the crib. Tonight, I smelled her head for an extra second or two before setting her down on her stomach for a night of slumber. She smelled like a cookie.

That Damn Nurse

2008-09-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

After many, many weeks of secrecy, Annie was finally able to learn the big secret about Aunt Connie having a baby in her tummy. Ben told her at preschool yesterday morning and she talked about it most of the way home.

"Now mom, it's going to be born juuuuust before Sam's birthday. After fall and winter and some of spring. Then, Ben will be a big brother TWO TIMES!"

At lunch, I asked Annie what she thought the baby would be, a boy or a girl. A boy, she said first, because Aunt Connie already has boys. A girl, she said a moment later. Because Aunt Connie doesn't have a girl yet. Hmmmm. Indecision. She cocked her head and shrugged. "Whoever put that baby in there . . . we don't know!" I think she meant that only the person who put the baby in there would know the gender, but it came out sounding like Aunt Connie has been less than discriminating in her relations and the baby-maker could be any number of strange persons. I called Connie to share this immediately.

This morning, I was snuggling Annie in her bed in the minutes after she'd woken up when she turned to me and asked, "Mom! When is that nurse going to put a baby in YOUR tummy?"

"What nurse?" I said.

"That nurse at the hospital."

"Well, I don't know. Mommy's already had two babies in her tummy, and that might be all the babies that I ever have in my tummy." This was greeted by an exasperated scowl. I have a feeling that the subject is going to come up again, with Annie doing some extensive lobbying for a new sibling of her own as Ben's new one grows. Luckily, I think I have a scapegoat: that uncooperative nurse at the hospital.

Slowing Down

2008-09-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

Today began at 7:15, when the sounds of Jemma's voice barged into my sleep. "Momma? Ove you. Momma? Ove you" from her crib. Now, who could resist that wake-up call, even when it is about an hour earlier than she usually wakes up for the day?

Annie had school this morning and then I debated packing us all up and driving to Lake Michigan for the afternoon, but I forced myself to laze around the house and yard instead because this is the first weekend we've had in about eight weeks with absolutely no plans. And even though I've been looking forward to this, to a weekend where we can be impulsively wandering from here to there right in our own neighborhood, it's like my brain can't quite handle it. It wants, badly, to make a plan. It wants to make a list (diapers, blankets, fan, bathing suits, sunscreen, monitors, DVD player, dolls, books, jammies, toothbrushes, clothes for church) and cram everything on that list into bags and put those bags in the car. But NO! Instead, I walked to the grocery store for kitchen twine and a bottle of red wine, drew lots more chalk creations on our driveway, sat down to a real family dinner, biked to a park and to get ice cream with the girls, and drank a glass of wine while painting my toenails. Next, downstairs to watch the first presidential debate and probably fall asleep on the couch.

I'm coming to the end of the Edgar Sawtelle book I've been reading for what seems like forever (it is over 500 pages) and, since I'm reading it at the same time as Parenting with Love and Logic, the following quote jumped out at me. (It's about training dogs.)

"Unless they had worked long and hard at it, most people thought training meant forcing their will on a dog. Or that training required some magical gift. Both ideas were wrong. Real training meant watching, listening, diverting a dog's exuberance, not suppressing it. You couldn't change a river into a sea, but you could trace a new channel for it to follow."

Dog training, parenting: who knew they were so similar?

Catechism

2008-09-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

This morning, Jason was telling me about a patient he'd seen yesterday with a cool Russian last name and the first name Meshack. Jason apparently asked him if his first name was also Russian and was told no, it's Biblical. At this point in the story, I jumped in with, "Yeah: Shadrack, Meshack and Abendigo." Jason, the one of us with the solid Catholic school education, had never heard of them, so then I had to go ahead and try to show off knowing all the New Testament books of the Bible in order, Psalm 23, and other long-ago-memorized-for-heathen-Protestant-Sunday-School tricks. At one point, the actual Bible was out on the breakfast table and we were trying to remember what, exactly, Daniel was doing in the lion's den. We ate, got dressed, brought Annie to school, and our day went on like the splendid fall day that it was.

One of Annie's tough transition times lately has been the moments between school pick-up and eating lunch. Even though it's usually only a 20-minute period, it almost always results in some sort of dramatics. Today, there was some sort of meltdown about pre-lunch hand-washing (even though I had used my new "everything is a choice" language: "Do you want to wash your hands by yourself in the bathroom or at the kitchen sink with me?") and Annie ended up in her room, yelling, "Poopyhead! Mom, you're stupid! Butthead, poopyhead, butthead, poopyhead . . ." (Also: where is she getting these words?? Stupid, I'm sure I've said, but poopyhead??) She finally pulled it together and came out to eat her turkey sandwich.

It was a gorgeous afternoon. We hung out with bikes and scooters and chalk for a while, then decided to pick up dinner at Panera and head to a park for a picnic dinner since Jason had to work late. The girls were thrilled with their chocolate milk boxes, sandwiches, and drinkable yogurt; they sat side by side on the picnic bench and ate nicely for a solid twenty minutes.

Then, we played. It's a big park, but right away I noticed a dad in another section, wearing a shirt and tie, actually playing very closely with his two kids, especially with his daughter (as opposed to the general watching and yelling "good one!" that I tend to do at the park). A few minutes later, they made their way over to the slide on which Annie and Jemma were playing. Now I could hear just what the dad was following his daughter around saying. It was, "Christ Died For Us. Say it. Christ Died For Us. While We Were Still Sinners, Christ Died For Us. Say it, honey. You need to say it. While . . .? While . . . ? C'mon. Christ Died For Us."

Annie shot me a "what the heck?" look and ran off to play on the swings. I followed, dragging Jemma along, but soon the poor little girl was there, too, because clearly she was just trying to get away from her nutcase father. The child was three, tops. And while I'm all for learning about your faith and even memorizing some good sections of the Bible, I'm going to go ahead and guess that this little girl has No Idea What That Means. Not to mention: this is your teaching method? Following her around the park while she tries to play, repeating the same sentence at the back of her head over and over?

So I kept pushing Annie, giving her underdog after underdog while Jemma hung out on the swing beside me. The dad kept whining, "C'mon, you've only said it once. While . . .? While . . .?" And I was seized with the naughtiest, most irrational hope that Annie might choose this precise moment to yell out "Poopyhead! Butthead!"

Three Parts

2008-09-23T19:29:00.001-07:00

Miss Heather Will Be Proud

Jemma has been talking more and more lately, and guess what? She has a southen accent. No idea where it came from, but there it is. A few examples:

"Oh-kaaaaaaay!"
"Aww dun" for "all done"
"Pottay" for "potty"
"Naow" for "no"

Just picture Dolly Parton saying things, and that is what Jemma sounds like. We love it. Also, notice that "potty" is one of her frequent words. That's right, not only does she continue to run into the bathroom and demand "teeth, teeth" to brush her teeth at least 3 times a day (a future dentist, that one), but now she is saying "pottay" and pointing to the toilet. And I'm thinking, really? You're 21 months old and you want to start THAT already? But the other morning, I gave in and sat her on it just for fun when she asked. She hung out, happily, for a good 10 minutes while I flat-ironed my hair (which I must do every single morning or else my hair becomes mushroom-y and ugly). She kept asking, "Mommy?" I'd say, "All done? Want to get down?" Nope. Nothing happened for her, either, but finally she said "Aww dun!" and then, as I got her down, "Ove you." Next thing you know, she'll be asking for a Kentucky Hot Brown.

******************

Remembering to Live in the Moment

If every day could be the tiniest bit more like today, I'd have an easier time remembering why it is, exactly, that I choose to be home with my kids. The weather: perfect. The kids: relatively well-behaved. The mom: full of energy after the morning run-around-the-lake session with Sarah (badly needed commiserating about 4-year-old drama!). I made an executive decision that we needed to go to an apple orchard, so we spent the morning at Robinette's, swinging on the wood swing while eating pumpkin donuts (did not buy enough . . . must return immediately), watching the girls go down the slide, buying apples and cider, and just hanging out together. Then we came home and did a Secret Agent Josephine-inspired art project with watercolors before both girls took naps. (When I showed the project to Annie on the SAJ website, she said, "Mom, I really love that little girl (Baby Bug).")I paid bills and did a little Florida-condo research for our February vacation, and we spent the rest of the afternoon outside. Happily. Without 17 time-outs and tantrums. Today, Annie was full of interesting questions ("Mom, what would we see if we cut open my tummy? Would my food be right in there? When Miss Heidi has a baby in her tummy, can it see the food in her tummy?") and I had the patience to answer them. Today, we all took time to taste our donut and pick up beautiful leaves. Today, I let them make a mess all over the front steps and turned it into something that Annie was proud to hang up in the playroom. Today, they helped me make applesauce and then ate it for dinner.

******************

Love and Logic Tip #1

I tucked Annie in tonight after reading The Runaway Bunny at 7:58 p.m. I wandered around, looking at the Chasing Fireflies catalog and picking up toys, for half an hour before I heard noise coming from her room. I ignored it. Fifteen minutes later, I went and stood outside her bedroom door to hear what, exactly, she was saying.

"Mooooooommy, I'm hoooooooot. I'm hot. I'm hooooooot."

I walked up to the door and said, "Annie, Daddy and I are going to bed. Feel free to solve that problem yourself."

"But Mom! I want short-sleeved pajamas and it's too dark and I can't find them."

"Hmmmm. Feel free to solve that problem yourself." One minute later, the light came on. I heard her drawer open. A minute after that, the light went out. Not another peep. (Let's hope that the 'I can turn my own light on any time of the day or night' realization doesn't backfire on me later; if so, this will be Love and Logic Mistake #1 instead.)

Eating Ice Cream With Love and Logic

2008-09-22T17:02:00.001-07:00

We welcomed the official start of fall with a family trip to Jersey Junction tonight for pumpkin ice cream and a caramel apple cider shake, which I of course will spend the rest of the fall trying to replicate at home. (Unlike last year's quest, the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, I think this one will be easy and, therefore, dangerously addictive and high-calorie. Good thing I took that run this morning while I had the chance.) It was great to ride there on bikes with the girls mostly behaving in the bike trailer. Progress there can be credited to my new read, Parenting With Love and Logic. Recommended to me by a few teacher friends and a neighbor, it's given me a new way to look at discpline. More importantly, it's given me a new slant on my philosophy as a parent. I love the real-life examples strewn throughout the text, I enjoy the emphasis on natural consequences (instead of arbitrary punishment), and I appreciate the inclusion of so many phrases and language choices that can change the way you relate to your kids. In general, I've spent the last two days trying to implement this system for Annie and I feel really good about it. No matter what else happens, I have some strategies to deal with the dramatics that don't leave me wanting to kick something; I'm taking myself out of the power struggle and forcing Annie to own her choices. We will see how it plays out in the weeks ahead, but I am hopeful.

Chicago

2008-09-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

When Annie woke up this morning, the first thing she said was, "When can we go back to Chicago?" So, yeah, we had a great time. We walked about 5 miles, rode a bunch of escalators, spent a ton of money, peed in several, several interesting bathrooms (the Ritz Carlton by far the most posh) and made her first visit to that lovely city as magical as possible. We spent the morning along the lake, riding the carousel at Lincoln Park Zoo and frolicking in the gorgeous gardens there before taking the El downtown for lunch. We ate at Rainforest Cafe even though it is SUCH a cheesy tourist trap because Annie absolutely loved it. She got a Shirley Temple and could maybe have just stayed in that restaurant, watching all the tropical fish and the fake alligator, for the rest of the day. Instead, we went to the 96th floor of the Hancock building for dessert and drinks. The best view from that location? The women's restroom, which had one entire wall of windows looking out at the city. I took a picture of Annie in there with the skyline in the background. As we were walking to Navy Pier, Annie spotted a park that looked fun, so we stopped and let her play for a while. We rode the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier and ended up getting a montage of Korean food, sushi, and edamame and settling down for a picnic dinner back in the Lincoln Park gardens at night before heading home. There were two separate weddings going on while we were eating, so Annie got to watch the brides while popping her edamame out of the shell. She was very happy. She fell asleep on the way home.

I took pictures with my old-school, non-digital Nikon, so I can't post them here. But if I could, the images would show Annie's big, happy eyes taking in every new detail of such an interesting place, and Jason and I with big, happy smiles because we got to do all fun things with just her all day long. I can't wait to take her again and again and am looking forward to being able to do more (museums, plays, real restaurants) each time. It was a tiny bit torturous being in that great city and having to stick to "kid" things - no Cubs game? No Anthropologie? No dinner at Bin 36? I am already plotting a way for Jason and I to go again.

As for Jemma, she played happily at my parents' all day long and went to bed there well before we got back. When we rolled in around 10:00 p.m., we of course had to wake her out of a dead sleep and put her in her carseat for the drive home. Oh, how I wished I could just cuddle her on my lap! She is notoriously a terrible car sleeper, so we were fearful that she'd scream furiously the rest of the way home and keep a sleepy Annie awake. Instead, she didn't go back to sleep, but just schmooed around in her carseat, drowsy, and smiled big, slow smiles at me whenever I turned around to peek at her. "Hi!" she'd say, brightly. Then she'd look over at Annie, sleeping next to her. "Ah-dee." Yep, we were all back together again.

Today we all slept in and then rushed around to get Annie to her first day of Sunday School. The rest of the day, we did little projects: vacuuming, unpacking, cleaning closets and putting away too-small clothes from summer, tearing down a fence between our house and Dean and Bona's (!), cooking dinner (this butternut squash risotto, which did not disappoint), and taking the girls to the track to run. It was nice to be at home with no place to go and no big events to gear up for this week. I tore last week's page off the calendar, threw it in the trash. Next week = very few plans. And I'm so glad.

A Good Use of Everyone's Time

2008-09-18T11:02:00.001-07:00

After last night's glorious, indulgent, grown-up birthday dinner at The Chop House (ridiculous bill totally worth every penny), I woke up optimistic. Energetic! Determined to have a fun day with the girls AND get a few things done around here (making dinner for a friend with a new baby, planting the mums I bought Monday that are still sitting on my front steps, putting away the clean laundry that is folded but still in piles all over my bedroom floor).

Instead, I have spent the majority of the morning holding Annie's bedroom door shut so she will remain in time-out. And in spite of reading something at one point that specifically said NOT to do so, I am seriously contemplating putting a lock on her door so I can separate her from Jemma when they become violent with each other. Finally, after about the 10th time-out, when it was clearly not having any effect on behavior, I just put her in her room and told her to take a nap - no story, no song, nothing. And not to come out under any circumstances.

Also! At one point last weekend, when the frenzy in the backseat of the car was out of control and we had already pulled the car over TWO TIMES to try to get Annie to Cut It Out, I grabbed my Aquafina bottle of water and threw some on her shirt. True confessions, people . . . At first I was a little mortified that I did something like that on reflex, but upon further reflection, I think it might have been OK: got her attention, shocked her into stopping the behavior, and didn't physically hurt her like a slap or a spanking would in the "old-school days" of discipline.

Just so everyone knows what we've been up to. Good times. Any helpful advice? Any child psychologists who want to come live at my house?

Questions, Questions

2008-09-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

1. Why do I let my beloved stylist chop off all my hair from time to time, and then pretend to NOT FREAK OUT while looking at my profile in the mirror?

2. Could there possibly be any more construction projects going on simultaneously within a 5-mile radius of my house?

3. Could we possibly have any more birthdays in September? (Jason's is tomorrow)

4. Why do people/politicians keep pretending that abstinence-only sex ed programs work when clearly they don't, as evidenced by other people in their very own families?

5. How soon can somebody rush me over a giant sleeping pill because - hey! It's midnight and I'm wide awake over here . . . again . . .

6. Why do I continue to think spontaneous morning outings to public places in my unshowered, ponytailed, no-make-up state are a good idea? (This morning, Meijer Gardens, ran into no less than 5 people I know)

7. What is this Twilight book series, and should I read it? Will it give me nightmares? (This, assuming that I ever go to sleep.)

Annie is Four

2008-09-15T22:08:00.001-07:00

Dear Annie,

You have been four now for a few days and I am late writing this birthday letter to you. There hasn't been a spare minute since we woke you up with presents on Thursday morning and I keep waiting for that long, perfect stretch of time in which to write you something meaningful. Instead, here I am at 1:00 a.m., unable to sleep because I owe you this (and some freelance copy besides).

For your birthday, we got you a few simple things we thought you'd love: a wedding dress for dress-up, some princess figurines with clothes and shoes, some flower hooks for hanging your artwork in your room, and a new movie. Daddy and I brought you your presents in bed and sang to you, and you loved them. You were warm and cuddly and full of awe that it was your birthday. I got right down by your face so I could smell your cheeks and asked you, "Can you even believe that you are FOUR years old?!?" and you could.

Within two hours, I had taken away the wedding dress because you tried to kick Jemma in the face, hit me, and refused to apologize. You were defiant and out of control and angry for no reason at all. This is how life has been with you these last few weeks - one moment you are charming and generous, the next you are difficult and hard to understand. You are testing us over and over, asking, "Is this OK? How about this?" and we are using every ounce of our strength and patience to say how very much we love you, to set boundaries because we do.

On Saturday, we went to a family wedding. You and Jemma wore matching brown corduroy dresses and cream leggings - perfect outfits for a cloudy fall day and and outside wedding. You were looking around in wonder at the fancy cake and the bride's gown and the flowers. You sat next to me and drank a Sprite, then ate some crackers and cheese from your little plate and some salad, about which you were very proud. After dinner, and after the newlyweds danced, the bride danced with her dad. I looked at Daddy; he was watching her sisters and mom watch the father/daughter dance. They had their arms around one another and were, as you would say, "crying in a happy way." You and Jemma were perched next to us, watching the magical duo dance, eating your cake daintily. And I knew he was thinking what I was thinking: someday it will be you out there with him, dancing at your very own wedding. Just then, I saw some beauty in your profile that gave me a glimpse of what that day will be like for you and for us. Just then, you were so precious to me that I could not imagine ever being happy for you to grow up and love someone else that way. But I will, I know.

In the time between now and then (many, many years), I am appreciating how delicate a task it will be to raise a daughter who will use her stubborness and her determination to create a life that works for her. I want to give you boundaries but not quench your spirit; I want to answer your questions but not discourage you from finding your own answers; I want to teach you to channel your defiance into a determination to make things better for you and for those around you. I predict that you, the girliest of girls, will not settle for being treated as any kind of "weaker" sex, and I am proud of you for that.

As the last part of your fourth birthday extravaganza, we are taking you to Chicago on Saturday. Just you, just us. I can't wait to watch your face as you take in whole new worlds of things you've never seen before - fish, dolphins jumping out of the water, taller buildings than you've ever seen, restaurants and taxis and trains. Seeing the city through your eyes, it will be fresh, new, and more interesting than it ever was before - just like life through your eyes. Thanks for letting me peek.

I love you, my girl.

Love,
Mommy

Today . . .

2008-09-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

-is the last day I can call myself "30" and Annie a "three-year-old."

-Jemma projectile pooped on me, my shirt, my pants, and the floor while I was changing her diaper.

-Annie proclaimed me "good at giving underdogs" on the swings at Lakeside.

-I managed Costco, Target, and Party City with the kids without any drama. (Is there ever a day when I don't go to Costco, Target, or the grocery store? And, what am I buying???)

-I tried to pack for our upcoming, up-north family wedding weekend and realized it's time to stop wearing flip-flops every single day. Also, that I have no good "winter" shoes.

-I spent from 11:35 - 12:00 wrangling Annie, limp/kicking/flailing, into the car after school. First, she ran away from me in the parking lot (safe), then it took me fully 5 sweaty minutes to get her up the stairs (while also carrying Jemma on one hip and Annie's leftover class birthday snack in a grocery bag), and finally Jemma and I waited outside the car for 10 more minutes until Annie could stop thrashing around in her carseat, yelling, "You're stupid!" and "I don't like you!" Poor Jemma - so confused about why we weren't getting into the car. NOT a situation I would like to repeat.

-I claimed with a fair amount of certainty that we will not, indeed, be having any more children (see above).

-Jason cooked us up a little dinner at 8:00 p.m. and we had some wine in the kitchen while discussing the ridiculousness that is our life.

-Wrapped Annie's birthday gifts and arranged them around her place at the dining room table so they'll be the first thing she sees when she goes to eat breakfast in the morning.

-Annie took a nap in her new princess sleeping bag. On the floor. Adorable.

Timing

2008-09-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

Just as I was about to spend hundreds of dollars on self-help parenting books, we've had a tolerable couple of days around here. We're busy, and there's barely time for blogging, but it's mostly good things: hosting book club, getting into a school schedule, readying various birthday treats (apples with caramel dip tomorrow at school, cake with neighbors and friends on Thursday morning), writing more freelance copy, running (Annie, too!), visiting Jason's office on official dental-cleaning business . . . I do best when I have just enough on my metaphorical plate to keep me on my toes, and while that plate is a little full this week, I'm happy.

It seems that Annie is just going to be the type of child for whom a consistent schedule is going to be totally necessary at all times. I remember her going through a similar funk last fall, so I looked back at some old entries and sure enough, she was a handful right around her birthday then, too. There must be something about those weeks of unscheduled laziness at the end of summer that doesn't work for her; on top of all the underlying anxiety about change and new school and becoming a whole year older, I yanked her schedule out from underneath her and expected her to entertain herself a bit more than usual. But Monday morning, she woke up ready for school and a whole new girl. So I guess I'm going to become one of "those parents" who signs her kid up for activities just to keep them "in" something. Also, I might have to stop telling her about her birthday more than one day in advance: "Birthday? Nope. You don't actually have one. I know, everyone else does, but you don't. You just become a new age magically, with no milestone." And then, September 11, BLAM! "Annie! Hey, it's your birthday TODAY! Enjoy!"

Just as Annie's done a fair amount to turn herself around, Jemma has begun asking the dreaded "WHY?" I thought two-years-old was for "no," and three-years-old was for "why," but we're getting it very, very early here.

"We don't throw things in the house."

"Why?"

"Don't put dirt in your mouth. It's not good to eat."

"Why?"

Really? . . .

I've started a new book just in time for the farmer's market to be in all its fall glory - In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. I read his other book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, last summer and have been meaning to read this new one, too, ever since a friend claimed on her GoodReads review that it changed the way she shopped for groceries. (I am such a nerd that I actually emitted a whispered "Yes!" in the library the other night when I found it on the shelf.) Even though Jason and I are both pretty into eating healthy food that we cook ourselves, I feel like we're ready to hear some reasons to commit more fully to a seasonal, local, more-organic way of eating. Wednesday morning farmer's market, here I come.

Our Weekend in Pictures

2008-09-07T18:27:00.001-07:00

First day of school, the fair, lunch at Crane's Apple Orchard, the first of many birthday gifts:

Remorse

2008-09-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

At a family picnic last summer, I remember Jason's aunt from Texas telling me, "I never knew I had a temper until I had a toddler." At the time, with my precocious two-year-old and my new-ish baby, I nodded knowingly, as though I understood what she meant. But not until these last few days and weeks have I really known what it's like to be furious with someone else, so upset and beside myself with helplessness and disappointment that I have had to hold myself back from doing unspeakable harm; so mad that I have wanted very, very badly to slap something or someone. I have not done it, but I have wanted to. And I feel horrible just for wanting to because this is my daughter I'm talking about, my firstborn, my adorable, clever, enchanting child who I love beyond measure. Yet the things she has done and said - intentionally, with the goal of being horrible - these last two weeks have been unacceptable, and nothing that Jason and I have done or said has been able to halt the progression of more and more bad behavior.

Tonight in the bathroom, she was on a tirade: "Mom, no. No! You are not going to give me my bath tonight. Daddy is. Stop! You are not allowed to give me a bath. I don't like you. I'm going to let you die."

When I asked her what that even meant, she pulled her shirt up over her face and wouldn't look at me for a minute. I took her her shirt off and put her calmly in the tub where she proceeded to kick Jemma. I scooped her right back out of the tub, soaking wet, and told Jason, "Just put her to bed." When I went in to kiss her good-night, she was smiling cruelly. I handed Jemma off to Jason (thank God for Jason), and went for a run, the only thing I knew to do. I was fighting tears for most of the route, wondering if this is something that all parents go through, wondering if this portends the kind of teenager she'll be, wondering if I put my own mother through such trying times.

My biggest frustration is that she seems to feel no remorse for her mistakes. We tell her, over and over, "Everybody makes mistakes, but then you say you're sorry and you try not to do it again." At which point she does it again, just to be naughty. Just to test us. As though, after two years of consistency in discipline and following through on consequences every single time, we might let something this big slide. I tell her, over and over again, "We don't care how smart you are, how fast you can run, how good of a singer or dancer you are; the most important thing is that you are kind to others." And she smiles, she laughs.

I don't think Jason feels as devastated as I do by all this. He's around plenty, to be sure, and he sees lots of our daily situations, but I am still the leader in our at-home scenarios, and I feel this failure very keenly. I feel as though I am doing something very wrong, but I look around and I can't quite figure out what it is. All I know is that I have ended one day holding her by the wrist, shouting, "That's enough!" over and over until we were both crying, and now one day running down Cambridge, tears in my eyes.

Her birthday is in 5 days, as she will tell anyone who will listen. I want to make it magical for her, with caramel cake and princess napkins and special presents and breakfast at a restaurant. But right now, I just don't know if my heart will be in it. Right now, I just want my sweet little girl back.

50's Flashbacks

2008-09-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a quintessential fall day - low clouds, peeks of sun, and just-right, cool temperatures. Fitting for my first Pumpkin Spice latte of the season after my morning run and for Annie's first day of school, which she loved (pictures soon). We brought her to her classroom, where she went immediately to the doll/dress-up area and started playing; barely a glance at us when we told her we were leaving and would be back to pick her up later. We spent the rest of the day trading off the kids so we could run errands, buy groceries, do laundry, and cook dinner. After dinner, we all biked to Wealthy Street Bakery and shared chocolate chip cookies outside.

Also today, the birth of baby Elsa, who we hope to visit tomorrow or Sunday in the hospital. This should provide many new details for role-playing "having a baby," a game that Jemma, too, now likes to play. She has spent the last two days carrying around Cee Cee Bingo. She'll bring the doll to me and say, "Bungo, bobby" while tugging at her shirt. She wants me to tuck the doll under her shirt, just like Annie does. Then she pulls it out, looks around proudly, and announces, "Bobby!," her way of saying "baby." Also involved in this role-play is putting Cee Cee Bingo in the stroller, covering her with a blanket, and pushing her around until she starts crying. You know she's crying because Jemma makes a very pitiful "awwhhh, awwhhhgg" noise and a sad face before cradling her and saying softly, "Bungo. Oh-oh-oh . . . Shhhhh."

As if the wedding re-enactments and the baby-having wasn't all 1950's enough, tomorrow we are off to THE FAIR, where we will pretend to be one with the farm animals. We are hoping to make it there in time for the 9:00 a.m. Youth Swine Show. Additionally, I am hoping that by going so early in the day, we will miss the majority of the carnies, who will probably be sleeping until noon.

Meet The Teachers

2008-09-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

We went to Annie's school this morning to meet her teachers, who seem to be two very lovely, patient women and who told me kindly but in no uncertain terms that we shall not speak of whether Annie will go to Young 5's or Kindergarten next year until spring conferences. I told them I will do my best not to think about it until then, either.

Annie (and Jemma too, frankly) absolutely loved her classroom. It is huge, almost twice the size of last year, but more importantly: The Dolls. THE DRESS-UP CLOTHES. While I sat at a tiny table in a tiny chair that made my dress ride up inappropriately and heard about the year, Annie played silently and steadily for 30 minutes. When I asked if she wanted to go out to the playground at the end, she said no. She wanted to stay in the classroom all day. My fear has never really been that Annie wouldn't love school (she really does); it is that she is going to want to have very little to do with singing songs and talking about shapes and colors because, again, THE DRESS-UP CLOTHES. Bins and bins of them . . .

I spent the rest of the day shooting down to South Haven to hastily trim the hedges with a rusted clippers from 1904 (and I think my whole upper body is really going to remember that tomorrow) and clean the house up now that our friend/renter has mostly moved out. He is sort of a friend from when we lived there, was going through a divorce, and needed a place for July and August. While it was great to have someone paying rent and watching over the place for two months, I believe the house hasn't actually been cleaned AT ALL in that two-month span, either. And since we have someone coming on Friday for a second showing (do not speak of this aloud or surely it will not happen), I wanted to clean it asap. I will just say: dog hair, toilets, dog hair.

So I am sweaty, sore, and dirty. And now that it is 8:43, I will go downstairs and inform my just-home-from-work husband that sadly, no, I do not have a plan for dinner, Bad Wife that I am. (I had the Bad Mommy thing going for a while, too, but I finally redeemed myself by calling to schedule Annie for a long-overdue dental cleaning AND a four-year checkup at her pediatrician's.)