Some pictures

My friend Maria took these of the girls enjoying some cupcakes. Lindsay enjoyed them the most. What a couple of hams.

Et voila

Aren't they festive? These are the dishtowel napkins. They are 100% cotton, and I chose blues and greens to go with our dining room rug. I'm about halfway through this project (some of the napkins are in the laundry already). They aren't precisely square, but folded into triangles it doesn't seem to matter. They sew up fast, so the time consuming part is the ironing and pinning.

Threatening shapes

"You know," Lauren remarked, "it's really just a ferocious square..." She traced a circle in the air with her finger.

"I believe you mean vicious circle..." I interjected.

"Ah. Yes. It's a vicious circle..."

Wasn't this a John Mellencamp song?

I was recently recognized by The Rising Blogger for my post about Participating in a Political Process. There's a thought that stands out like a sore thumb, I wrote:

after the banana bread incident, I don't take these chances.

And, no, I never explained what happened. To get an idea the size of the borough I live in, you could look here, but if you're not a link follower, suffice it to say that the blog author (whom I haven't met) thinks our mayor (whom I have met, a neighbor) isn't doing a very good job, but also seems to dislike her personally. A borough about 2 miles in diameter, home to about fourteen thousand people, it will give you the impression that this is a politically charged place to be, and if you're like-minded, a real opportunity to put into practice the notion of changing the world by thinking globally and acting locally.

The vastness of the Internet sometimes gives a blogger the impression that she's talking and no one is listening. I'm not naive enough to think that a Google search done by any random person I interact with will put them in front of this blog. Particularly if I were to relate a story that perhaps reflects someone in a less-than-flattering light. But now, I feel I must balance that with having revealed the punchline of a joke and then rudely not explained it.

Lauren has a good friend whose family is very religious. This isn't an anomaly in our town. Rachel had been over our house a couple of times when we were invited to lunch together at her house. Rachel's mom, Kat had said, "I'm making sandwiches, but you should bring something that Lauren will eat."

Lauren and I got up early that morning and made a loaf of banana bread together.


I wrapped the still-warm bread in a clean tea towel and we walked to their house. Lauren carried the loaf into their house and presented it to Rachel.

"What is that?" Kat asked.

"We made banana bread." I replied. At this point, Rachel had put the banana bread on the kitchen table which was set for lunch.

"Oh no," Kat looked horrified. "Please don't bake things and bring them into my house...We're Kosher!"

"I'm very sorry," I stammered, thoroughly embarrassed. I knew they were quite religious, but in my mind anyway, I didn't make the connection that they were also Kosher. I stood there wondering if I was supposed to take the banana bread out of her house, I thought, she said bring food and never mentioned it. I was clueless because she hadn't said anything before I came over or either of the times that Rachel had been to my house.

Dad likes to say "Life is strange and then it gets a whole lot weirder", and so after her reaction, Kat proceeded to cut up the loaf, serve it, and then wrapped the rest up and put it in her bread box.

About a week later, Kat said that Rachel had a very nice time and wanted to have another luncheon in a few weeks, "Really, I think Rachel just wants more of that banana bread."

I laughed uncomfortably. You've got to be kidding me, I thought.

Wherein Epiphany Alone does her happy dance

Alright, I got the BEST news today and I just had to share...

My professor pulled me and 2 other students aside after class and shared her carefully guarded secret, that her students who receive As on the first 2 exams and the paper don't have to take the final exam. I received an A- on the paper, so now I don't have to spend the week studying.

A-friggin-mazing!

Housekeeping

Lauren is having a playdate. If I had my camera, you'd see that she and her little friend are dressed up in pink dresses (it's Disney labeled stuff, but they insist they are bridesmaids) and dragged the toy kitchen in from the sun porch. This is a game we called "playing house" as kids, but for some reason Lauren's friend calls it "housekeeping".

I took Karen's advice and bought some fancy dishtowels for my first set of napkins. They are turning out quite well, and a bargain at Marshalls. The dishtowels were 3 for $3.99, and yield 6 napkins. I bought 4 packages so that I would have 3 sets of 8. One of the things I've learned about Marshalls though is that if you see something, you must buy it because they NEVER have it a few days later.

Otherwise, I have a week and a day until my final exam, so mostly I've been studying for that. Hopefully I will have my camera back before we get into next week, because I have a feeling there won't be much blogging...

Multitasking

Occasionally, I find myself doing something I couldn't have imagined before I had kids. Today, it was running down the stairs with a baby tucked under my arm, putting back on her pants as I stepped. I pulled a tissue out of my left pocket to wipe her nose as my feet met the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Is there a Mom badge for that?

Moment of clarity

"I've been thinking a lot about something." Lauren started as I parked the car before school. "I really think we should discuss it."

"Alright." I said. "What do we need to discuss?"

"Grandpa Paul."

"Ok. What about Grandpa Paul?"

Lauren heaved a sigh. "I just wanted to say that I think he might be Santa Claus."

"What makes you say that?"

"Mom," she said in her all-business tone, "Did you look at Santa? He looked like Grandpa Paul. And where was Grandpa Paul when Santa was there? Oh. And G kissed him."

Christmas 2006

"That sounds like very good evidence." I said.

"So why did everyone pretend that Grandpa Paul is Santa Claus?"

"Because sometimes it's fun to pretend."

Happy Earth Day

As an effort to be more eco-conscious, we're weaning ourselves off of plastic bags. As a result, we've been collecting bags and baskets for grocery shopping. I got a great one from TJ Maxx which is a canvas basket about the size of the ones that they have for toting your groceries at the store that folds flat. The problem I'm having currently is that I realize that most trips, I'm still bringing home produce bags. I see that one can buy bags for produce, but it's a rectangle and well, I can sew a rectangle.

I'm hoping that the Earth Day present I'll get from the Internet is details to make myself some - dimensions, material, and rough details. Also, an added bonus would be napkin details, because cloth napkins are also stupidly expensive considering they're just a square of fabric.

Karen? Frauke? Sybil? Lisa? Rebecca?

There goes her radio career

Lauren announces, while coloring, "I am coloring this person brown!"

"Nice. When someone has skin that color, we say they are black."

"But they aren't black. They're brown."

"Yes. But they prefer to be called black."

"Ms Brown is brown." she replies. Ms Brown teaches at Lauren's school.

"Yes. But she would prefer to be called black."

"Why would she want to be called Ms Black if that's not her name?"

Marking a sad day for women's rights

"Today's decision is alarming," Ginsburg wrote in dissent for the court's liberal bloc. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

Ginsburg said that for the first time since the court established a woman's right to an abortion in 1973, "the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health."

Read the entire article here.

Participating in a political process

If, for whatever reason, you read my blog and don't know me personally, let me set you straight - I am a little bit nuts. Not in a cross-the-street-to-avoid-the-drooling-freak sort of way, but in a neurotic, occasionally annoying, but usually funny way.

Yesterday was the big vote. And I received a chipper email this morning informing me that the budget had indeed passed, by 95 votes. The polls were open at 2 PM yesterday, so I decided to head down to my polling place, a local synagogue, after the bus arrived at 3. It's only about a 5 block walk, and parking is hard to come by on our main street, so I put Lin in the stroller and we walked despite the drizzle.

Alec had taken the girls to an Easter egg hunt a few weeks back at the Reform Church, and the party favors, most of them religious, had ended up in the bottom of the stroller. Notably, an Easter crown of eggs - about 8 eggs linked together paper doll-style each with a little saying about God, miracles, and Jesus. So seconds before we are about to enter one of the borough's conservative temples, Lauren has adorned herself with a paper crown that announces Jesus Loves Me!.

God has the best sense of humor though. Seriously. He really has to take his stand up routine on the road and tour with Seinfeld.

Just as we turned the corner, the paper crown blew off.

A girl, a couple years older than Lauren caught it in the air and handed it back to her. Lauren replied, "I think we should put this away now, Mom. I don't want to lose it."

"Oh ok. " I replied, tucking it back into the bottom of the stroller. I believe in miracles! beamed up from inside the black mesh basket.

We entered the synagogue, the crown forgotten. Since I had mentioned at the bus stop that Lauren would get a treat after this was over, that we'd reached the destination caused that thought to become itchy. "So, where's my treat?"

"After we're done, hon." I replied. Lindsay had become fussy, so I was trying to read the district numbers for each check in table while I rocked the stroller back and forth.

"What is it?"

"A lollipop."

"May I have it?"

And usually, my friends, I offer a lollipop as a treat because it in of itself is a quiet distraction. I collect the ones that the bank gives away so I usually have a stash of Wachovia blue and green. If it was the sort you buy at the store, it would've had the reassuring K to indicate that one might use is as bait in the synogogue, but after the banana bread incident, I don't take these chances. "Once we leave. They have a lot of rules about food in a synagogue."

Lauren looked enchanted - her favorite sort of rules are food rules. "Really, what kind of rules?" she asked loudly.

"No lollipops." I lied.

"Ohhh." she breathed. "Ok." She watched excitedly as I pushed buttons, and pushed the big red VOTE button when I finished.

As we walked to the door, she stopped the smartly dressed woman entering to warn her, "No lollipops in here, ma'am. They have food rules."

Oy.

At the same age

Lauren, July 2003

Lauren and Lindsay, April 2007

They have the same nose and mouth - mine, I think. But the face shapes are very different, and so are the eye shapes. Lauren's eyes are almond-shaped, and Lindsay's are round. Although this isn't a great picture to see it, Lauren's eyes have already changed to hazel, while Lindsay's are still remarkably blue. Lauren's hair was a little longer, and quite a bit darker.

How did I get into this?

About a month ago, I went to my first PTO meeting. Although I'd had good intentions of attending meetings before, I had not managed to make it. Alec was traveling. I was also struggling with the idea of saddling a sitter with the bedtime routine, and yes, I guess that's a pretty lame excuse. But last month, the meeting's subject was the school budget, which seemed important enough to me to hire a sitter and attend the meeting.

The meeting was fine. The superintendent presented the budget and then one of the board members tried to recruit people to volunteer to help pass it. The whole thing lasted about an hour and a half, and I sat next to Kendra, a mom from Lauren's class, we shared a couple of laughs making snarky comments.

About 2 weeks ago, the AlphaMom from the bus stop asked me if I wouldn't mind making a few phone calls. I reluctantly agreed. I'm sure there are few people who hate talking on the phone more than I do, but I felt like it was a simple request.

Earlier in the week, I received an email from the PTO vice president asking if I would volunteer to hold a position in the organization next year. I said, well, I've only been to one meeting. If I can manage to get to the rest of the meetings this year, then we can talk about my serving as Corresponding Secretary. She wrote a kind of funny response about how the PTO is "very low key" and sometimes meets during the day for coffee (and you know how I feel about coffee).

So, it didn't surprise me that she was at the town event that took place on Saturday. Nor that she made a point to say hi. I was relieved, actually, because I knew I had to pick up my phone list and I'd forgotten whose house I was supposed to go to. She grinned and replied, "Yeah, Wendy sure managed to get a lot of volunteers!" and wrote down the address.

I picked up my packet, which contained a list of about 50 borough residents, 2 scripts (one for a live person, one for voice mail), a fact sheet, and a key code of polling locations. I made about 40 calls between 4:30 - 6 PM last night (Alec made about a dozen), mostly to answering machines. My second to last call was the only one that required the fact sheet. "A vote 'No' won't change that you have to pay taxes!" I implored one voter. By the end of the call, he agreed to vote for the budget.

I have no idea what happened.

Musings about music

I had thought that the purpose of doing a cover was to take a song that had long since fallen out of favor, adding your stylistic elements to it. Alanis did a cover of The Black Eyed Peas "My Humps" which definitely has her style - it's morose, depressing, and hard to parse her accent. Otherwise, Alanis dressed as Fergie? Wow.



Are they obligated to sing "Shakira! Shakira!" whenever Shakira sings? Is it just in style right now because disc jockeys rarely announce songs anymore, so at least you're getting your brand out there to those who don't immediately recognize that you're Sean Paul, Rihanna, Akon, Eminem, or Nelly Furtada?

Sorry, no deep thoughts today after a couple days off - working on a paper for Art History this week.

And to think I knew you when

My dear friend was recently exposed for the trouble-maker he is. And he is a huge trouble-maker. He's also one of the funniest people I know, and mostly because he isn't trying to be funny. I never knew him as a young man, so I can't say he turned 50 and lost his filters. From our mutual acquaintances, I suspect it is safe to say that he is as God made him. Not only has he been a great friend, he has been a continual fan of my family's life and has lent support in more ways than I can enumerate.

He has known Lauren since she was a speck on an ultrasound film, back when we referred to her as The Munchkin. She spent the better part of her first year hanging out in his office. And because (or perhaps in spite of) they share the same birthday, he has always had a great affection for her and delights in stories about the person she's become.

We were on the phone catching up about vacations and household construction when Lauren sauntered into the room and asked, "Mom, may I please mop the floor?"

I could actually hear him holding his breath. Several seconds passed before he asked, "Did she just ask if she could mop?!"

Nonchalantly, I led her to the kitchen and handed her the rag mop and told her to do the kitchen first and work her way to the living room.

"May I use the duster after that?"

"Sure, I will leave the broom closet open. Just make sure that you only take out one tool at a time, okay?"

"Okay, Mom."
So she proceeded to do that, and as you can see from the pictures, talked all the while in typical Lauren fashion.
"She likes to mop."

"Oh my..." He was actually giggling at this point.

"I've always been good at managing people..."

"Yes...but...wow. Oh my."

"You're kicking yourself that you didn't think of it first."

"Wow."

"And if I say that Lindsay is here looking on wistfully..."

"You're so cool. And to think I knew you when..."

Thoughts

While I was on break a couple weeks ago, Dad awarded this blog a Thinking Blogger award. I've been pondering it pretty hard because there are a lot of blogs I read for different reasons, and many of them are tucked into my blogroll - some funny, some practical, and great on-and-offline friends. But I wanted to share some blogs that aren't in my blogroll.

Jenn at Breed 'Em And Weep was one of the first blogs I've read. She is an amazing writer. She's not an easy read though, and I'll admit about half the time her posts move me to tears. From earlier in the week:

"I’m watching you. Watch me back. Take a good look at me as I wipe my whining kid’s nose and fumble for my car keys. If you love a girl for the long haul, this is what you’ll get. Someone like me. Someone like your mother.

Try not to recoil. Let it sink in. Because this is the start of recognizing that beauty runs a lot deeper than all of us can see, especially in our crappy surly early years. Since we’re speaking of surprise: Real beauty is fabulously surprising. The sooner you train yourself to look for it (not just the glossy enameled variety), the better."

Read the rest of her post here.

Pushing the proverbial envelope of what can and can't be said aloud on the Internet is the oft hated V. I like reading V - she's a tells it like it is no-nonsense woman. From a recent post:

I think everyone has those moments in their life when something all of the sudden shifts. Enlightenment usually comes without warning, but when it does, anything can happen. You can decide to leave your soul crushing job, move to a new city, propose to your girlfriend, or even finally realize your own faults. You can make big changes in your life. Or, failing that, at least come to know the reasons behind the decisions you’ve already made. All this can happen within the span of a single moment.

What I find most intriguing about these moments is that when traced back to their birth, they usually come about in the most mundane of circumstances. Perhaps you decided to divorce your husband while crossing the street to get a cup of coffee. Or maybe you found God while examining a blade of grass. A child’s smile might have reminded you of your love for you Mother, or a song on the radio made you think of your worst childhood enemy. It’s kind of amazing the things that we can learn about ourselves and the world around us just by carrying on with the drudgery of our day."

Read the rest of her post here.

Figleaf, another anonymous blogger, writes a blog called Real Adult Sex. He explores topics such as the [mythological?] differences in libido between men and women, thoughts he would share with a virgin, and when sex becomes "senior sex". This post was one of my favorites:

"Chances are *exceedingly* slight that the gleam in your father's eye when you were but a gleam in your father's eye did not involve making you. Chances are also *exceedingly* slight that your mother laid back and "thought of England." Instead they, like your over-30 non-hot teachers, like your fusty principal, or ministers, or the craggy old grocery store manager had sex pretty much exactly the way you do and pretty much for the exact same reasons."

Read the rest of his post here.

Thanks for the recognition, and I hope you enjoy these great blogs!

Once they start talking, they can talk back

"What's that on your face?"

"What's on my face?"

"What did you draw with on your face?"

"What did I..."

"Was it marker?"

Woeful expression. Averted eyes.

"Should I take that as a 'Yes'?"

***

"Bye bye, Baby," the cashier says. She waves.

Lindsay looks at her quizzically.

"She will say "Bye" and wave about fifteen minutes from now."

A quarter hour later:

"Buh bah," Lindsay says, jerking her whole left arm up and down awkwardly. "Buh bah."

Finding her Punk roots, or How Lindsay celebrated Easter...

Props to Karen at Reason Enough for the photo (and the fabulous Easter dinner).

And then Lauren told the giant Peppermint Pattie that he looked tasty...

Some of the sweetest moments

Ready for bed

Lindsay's first carousel ride

Learning to fly

Alec discussing philosophy (or perhaps gravity?) with Lauren

State of affairs

Alec: "If one more person calls me Mr Fisher, I'm gonna slug you..."

[Epiphany makes a mental note to always register the hotel with her credit card.]

Catchphrase contest

Yo, V. Why isn't your catchphrase don't try to outbitch the bitch? That's the best one yet.

Your blog gives me a chuckle in a need-to-take-a-shower-after sort of way.

Some pictures

The girls, dressed to go to Tuesday's Seder

Lauren prepares to be a flower girl for the third time

Lauren and Alec at Cracker Barrel in Allentown, PA

Lindsay waits patiently for her grilled cheese

Knowing what He would do, what to do

I've never sought a church to belong. I didn't belong to a church growing up, and only attended a handful of masses, mostly of the Christmas and Easter types in the Catholic church. I cannot reconcile most of the tenets of that particular church with my beliefs. As a non-church goer, people assume I don't have beliefs, which is not true. Like other Christians, I try to emulate being loving and kind to those in my life. I don't always meet that goal, but I get up every day and try again. And without getting too ethereal to make a point, as a Christian, I believe He loves me as I am, and loves all people as they are even if they don't believe.

Surely if asked to change the plan He created involving His mother driving down from Connecticut to look after the baby so that she could be in pictures and his eldest so that she could be a flower girl, He would turn the other cheek. He would not be offended that Nanny told an untruth about the bride having chosen dresses after He asked to be included in choosing them simply so she could have her way. When told it was now an imperative that His daughter was there into the night after not being invited to the reception, and that there would now be a hotel room where Mary must stay and look after the baby until the eldest got tired, He would say, "And so it shall be." He would look on her as He looks on all his children, and smile.

Now I am faced with replanning. Certainly, it makes the most sense to have my mother take Lindsay home to sleep. If Lauren is staying, it probably also makes the most sense for my mother to leave with Lindsay immediately after pictures are taken to salvage as much routine as she can. They will both be most comfortable in my home rather than a hotel. Lauren will be as happy to stay and go to the reception as she would to go with G. Unlike my brother's wedding, which saw her dancing into the night, the ceremony starts at 7 PM. I'm worried by 9 PM, faced with starting an hour and a half long dinner, it will knock her on her feet. I am thinking I should bring Lauren's sitter to take Lauren when she is ready to leave, take them up on footing the bill for J and the hotel room. It's a terrifically complicated plan and my initial reaction is that it's throughly stupid, but it accommodates all they've asked for at this point.

Yeah, Christ probably doesn't say "Bite me", right?

My not-so baby girl

is standing...

Well, ya know

It was time for me to take a break amidst several days in a row of family (mine, then his), exam preparation, and trying to keep up with the details of raising kids, forming a social life, keeping a house, and being a good partner. Embarrassingly, what drove me it was that this blog was labeled boring (not undeservedly) by an AI-type blog review site, and I got lost in the struggle with what I can and can't say about what goes on in my "real life" since I am not bathed in the air-brushed blur of anonymity. Every time I sat down to write something, I would think oh, this is boring, no one cares about this or geez, what a sarcastic, bitter person I am. I got stuck in this self-defeating loop and decided I needed to just stop, take a break, and then try to move on.

I took a look at what I've accomplished in setting routines for the house, meeting people, exercising, keeping the blog, excelling in school and felt disappointed. Why can't I enjoy my successes? Why is it never enough? I got angry with myself because I couldn't find a good answer for why I can't just be happy. I can love Lauren and Lindsay in their imperfection, so why can't I love myself that way?

My psyche is a little bruised, but I'm going to keep working anyway. Not for anyone else but for me.