Scary and not fun

Alec is in Dallas this morning, and off to Berlin later today. Yes, Germany. Which makes my morning routine very exhausting and rushed no matter what time I get myself out of bed.

It was all going fine - girls were dressed and finishing their breakfast - until the critical moment we had to leave. Suddenly Lauren became a whiny mess who couldn't put on her own coat or backpack while I struggled to get Lindsay into her parka. "Get on your coat...I don't care if it's zipped," I snapped in my drill-sergeant voice, "Put on your backpack, get out the door!" I had Lindsay tucked under one arm with her parka, and the other opened the trunk and unfolded the stroller. "Coat!" Lindsay said. "Yes, I know we have to put on your coat," I said dryly.

"Mom, I need help zipping up."

I put Lindsay's coat on and tucked her into the stroller, zipping and buckling as one motion. "You really need to be a little more independent," I scolded as I struggled with her zipper.

Merrrow!

"Hey, it's Seamus!"

"Stay here, Seamus, I will be back to feed you in a few minutes." I said, pushing the stroller, "Come on, Lauren, we have to hustle or you'll miss the bus."

We made it to the stop with chatting time to spare. Just as the bus pulled to the stop a block away, Seamus walked into the middle of the street.

"Oh my gosh," said one of the dads, "Whose cat is that?"

"Mine," I replied. "Seamus! Get out of the street!" I parked the stroller and ran out into the intersection, scooping up the cat.

"He's sure dressed for Halloween," the dad said.

Of course, now I have a freaking out cat, a kid to put on the bus, and another kid to somehow get home in her stroller. I verbally ushered Lauren on the bus as Seamus finally struggled free and ran back across the street, fortunately traffic still was stopped for the bus, and made his way home.

As he followed me inside, he had the irrepressible arrogant air of a teenage boy. I was really hungry, he meowed.

Just words

The day my parents brought my little sister home, I crept into her room to watch her sleep. She came home from the hospital dressed in a white onesie with little yellow duckies on it with matching booties on her teeny feet. I leaned my chin against the rail of the crib and watched her sleep for a long time, inhaling the scent of powder that hung on the air. I remember feeling she was fragile, and there was some risk she wasn't a permanent fixture in our lives.

She was a scrawny baby with barely any blonde hair atop her head and huge blue eyes. Her first two years were marked with diagnoses I didn't understand at age 12. She spat up every meal and wasn't gaining enough weight.

My most concrete memories of her were when she was 2 or 3 and used to like to dress up in pink and purple, a little blur of sandy ringlets. She was so girly, like a little doll. The sister I'd always wanted.

She was 6 years old when I told her it wouldn't be long before I went away to college. She cried angry tears at me. "You..." She searched for the worst word she could think of, "...bug," she erupted.

I went away to college. I got married. I moved to the Midwest and settled in New York. She was 14 when she came down to spend time with Alec and I in our little apartment, singing Brittney Spears songs. We laughed and laughed. My brothers are really funny people. My sister is genuinely the funniest person I know.

We spent a few days together when Lauren was about 5 weeks old when I basically ran away from my life for a week, overwhelmed by motherhood, seeking refuge with my mom and my grandmother. It was a few months after she had a terrible car accident and had wrapped her car around a telephone pole. She seemed different, but we watched her run and she smiled and carried baby Lauren around to meet her friends.

It is a lifetime ago.

Lauren's lifetime.

I just wish she could find peace in her life. I want her to live her dreams, whatever they are. Because the idea of a world without her is far too dark for me to even imagine.

Better parenting

One of my dear friends once said that a lot of parenting is an effort to re-parent ourselves - to correct the wrongs of our parents so that each generation is a little smarter, better than the last. He doesn't have children. I add that, not because I think he's wrong, but because it provides some context. In the real world, not every parenting decision falls into this category. A lot of my parenting is down-and-dirty, split second decision-making. I do the best I can. Sometimes it isn't good enough.

I'm going to take a breath here and say this is just an observation. If you happen to be my parent you can probably take this very personally and decide never to speak to me again, but that would really suck so I hope you don't.

The single-most failure of my parents' parenting was in preparing me to have adult relationships. I don't know if they thought they'd have more time to accomplish that and the ill-timed failure of their relationship got in the way, that it was someone else's job (the school), or since no one taught them it was something that I was supposed to learn on my own.

When I was seventeen, I took my first trip to Planned Parenthood. One of my high school friends had just had a pregnancy scare and I decided I didn't want to be in that position. I didn't discuss this with my parents, as I didn't discuss any of the other details with them either. The boyfriend I was with was not my first lover. At that time, you could buy up to 12 months worth of pills directly from them. I bought 6 month's worth because that was how much cash I had on me when I was there. When I got home, I put the box in my bottom drawer under some clothes and put the current pack in my top drawer so I'd remember to take them every morning.

Although it wasn't the usual for my mother to put away my laundry, she claimed she found the pack in my top drawer this way. She screamed. Why had I done this without talking to her first. Didn't I know about the horrible side effects of the Pill? I was too young to be having sex!

I don't think I engaged her in this conversation. I listened to her scream for a while, and then I said coldly, "I'm not talking about this with you. If you want to ground me, that's fine...but I really don't have anything to say."

She threw the pack of pills on the table. "Fine."

We never spoke again about it.

Ever.

Why did I do it without talking to her? We'd had exactly one previous conversation about sex when I was 12. She seemed terribly uncomfortable. I already knew the details, and this conversation was just Hell. When I'd asked her about sex when I was 9, she refused to talk about it, so the awkward conversation 3 years later just sent along the message that she was not someone to talk to.

Did I know about the horrible side effects? Yes. A doctor informed me of some pretty mild side effects as juxtaposed with having an abortion or being a teen mom. I also knew that while condom use protected well against sexually transmitted diseases, it wasn't most effective at preventing pregnancy. I thought, and of course this is some chip-on-my-shoulder teenage impetuousness, that I was making a pretty responsible choice.

Was I too young to be having sex? Probably. I was already doing that though, so it seemed like a dumb topic.

What would I have said to my seventeen year old?

This is the hard one. I'd imagine the teenagers are interested in sex earlier than that these days. I'd like to think I'm not coming off to my girls as being unapproachable (though did my mom think the same thing?).

I'd probably still ask if she was having any side effects from the pill, because they can be common and there are so many formulations now that you can try if one doesn't agree with you. I'd remind her that while the Pill protects from pregnancy, it doesn't against sexually transmitted diseases - the most common of which can be symptom-free in women. I'd say that respect is very important in sexual relationships and to make sure she was being both respected and respectful. Beyond that, I don't know. I probably need to figure it out, because I'll probably have to have this conversation twice.

Friday morning

Some mornings I drive Alec to the train station. On the way back, Lindsay and I discuss which animals say what.

"What does the kitty say?"

"Mee-yow."

"What does the cow say?"

"Mu-ooo."

We drove to Target this morning to buy paper goods. As I went to take Lindsay out of the car seat she said, "Crackers?"

"No, honey. We've got to go into the store."

She put on her biggest, fake-est cry. Then she slapped the top of her head and pulled her own hair.

Seriously.

What IS that?

Picking the perfect pumpkin and other alliterative adventures

"I'd like a thermos made out of steel, like that one Nicole has..."

"Oh, ok. We can get one at Target the next time we're there."

"I think we should pay for it."

"Hmm?"

"I think we should not steal it."

"Oh, I see you're pointing out that steel, the metal, and steal, take something sound the same."

"Yes."

"That's called a homonym."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Homonyms sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings."

"Cool."

There were four in the bed and the little one said

"Hi, Kitty. Me-yow!"

Signs that it's not going to be a very good day

From shotgun camp

Sunday's soccer game

That's Lauren kicking the ball. Andrew is mostly obscured by Ely, and Paul is standing on the right.

I don't know who those two moms are in the background wearing white shirts and jeans. They look buff though.

As part of my campaign

I'll let you know right now that it did flit through my head yesterday morning that I couldn't remember how many diapers I'd been through the day before. I usually tote around 3-5 of them and a package of wipes. Not those polite little recyclable containers, because I find they don't dispense moist wipes at critical moments.

It was a particularly stinky mess I'd cleaned up when I reached into the diaper bag and drew back empty handed. "Oh no." I said.

"What's up," Karen asked from the kitchen.

"No diapers." I was thinking, oh right, one change at the gym, two at Kim's yesterday. Three diapers gone.

"Oh," Karen said casually, "No problem. I might have some."

Karen is the quintessential hostess, so it would not surprise me if she did have a package of diapers even though her baby is nearly seven in the same way that my Gramma Jean (whose birthday is today - Happy Birthday, Gramma!) always has several different brands of cigarettes tucked away in her freezer in case you should run out even though she hasn't smoked since she was in her thirties.

"No," she said. "I'll just send Chris to get some at CVS."

The menfolk with Ross in tow went to get some diapers while we kept Lindsay in the kitchen. Karen was preparing salads for dinner and I was enjoying a beverage. Lindsay splashed happily in Pixie's water dish.

"I can move them if you'd like," I said.

"No need." Karen replied. "There's not much damage a little bit of water's going to do to the kitchen."

Lindsay wandered back and peed on the floor a couple of inches from my feet. "Oh, I see we didn't make it to diapers." As I stood up, I noticed that she'd also fertilized the floor. "Oh no." I said. "Poop."

"No problem," Karen said. We cleaned the mess together with paper towels. She sprayed the floor with some Method cleaner and all was right with the world, until we realized that poop had just been a distraction.

Why yes, that is my naked toddler giving herself a beer bath in a puddle of cat water.

Another day, another Mommy driveby

Lindsay has learned when we approach a counter when doing errands that she gets a lot of attention if she says "Hi!" loudly. She's reluctant to say "Bye!" although she can. Sometimes she gives a little waves, but oftentimes she just sort of stares.

It's a beautiful autumn day here - the leaves are starting to fall from the trees in shades of tan, yellow, and orange, and it's a humid 75 degrees. Lindsay's dressed in a pink t-shirt and a floral skort (skirt with shorts underneath).

As I was signing the "I don't want to talk to the pharmacist" paperwork for the 3 prescriptions I was picking up, an elderly man began talking to Lindsay.

"Why don't you have on your shoes?"

I didn't turn to acknowledge the speaker, because he hadn't asked me a question. I could've explained that she just takes off her shoes and that she'd managed to lose one of her shoes (purchased at Nordstrom) 2 weeks ago when the weather was cool enough to worry about socks. I took a step back so that I could keep Lindsay in my line of sight, but continued signing forms.

"It's silly that you don't have shoes on! A baby needs shoes!"

I handed the cashier my credit card.

"Your feet must be cold. Is that why you're holding them?"

I picked up the pen to sign my receipt.

"What's he got on his eye? A stye?"

"She has a hemangioma." I replied with my back to him, as I handed the cashier my receipt. "Thank you," I said as pleasantly as I could muster to the cashier.

"Bye bye," the man said to Lindsay flapping his hand at her. She stared back. "He doesn't say much does he?"

I narrowed my eyes at him and left without a word.

From her highchair perch

"Daddy? Mama? Daddy? Mama? Wuv ooh."

Romantic getaways

I'd been deliberately evasive about our weekend plans. "We're going camping," I'd told my friends.

That wasn't untrue. We stayed in a cabin a little way outside Binghamton. It had neither running water nor electricity. I prepared for this by spending the night before at the Holiday Inn, my previous idea of "roughing it". We went up with Alec's cousin Elissa and her fiance, Dan, trying to figure out who we were actually going to meet up there and why there was such a long prelude about the dog.

Shotgun camp.

What?!

Shotgun camp.

No, seriously. What did you do this weekend?

We spent the weekend at an intensive clinic to learn how to use a shotgun.

I was, as Lauren likes to say, more than a little apprehensive. On Saturday morning, I took copious notes in my composition book:

Your gun should always be unloaded if you're not firing it
It should always be pointed in a safe direction even if you know it's unloaded
Keep your finger off the finger off the trigger unless you're firing it

I learned how to load and shoot. I actually managed to hit some of the clay pigeons and steel plates despite having a short arm length and a cross-dominant eye. I have a good sized bruise against my left shoulder. But I expected I would learn a lot. I expected at the end of the weekend to have actually managed to shoot. I didn't expect it would be as much fun as it was. It was really great.

Number 3

Lauren and Paul at halftime on Sunday. United won (both sides, in fact).

Wild and sordid things

I almost have too much to write about this morning. Recall that line from Ghostbusters? "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria." Welcome to my yesterday.

My neighbor Ed stopped me last night to ask me if I have a huge black cat.

"Why yes, I do. A huge black cat with no tail."

He narrowed his eyes. "And he hates people?"

"Well, I don't know about that. He's a nice cat to us."

"My daughter Holly said it was your cat and he won't let anyone pet him."

"Yes, that's possible. He's only been out for a couple of days, he'll warm up."

"He was setting the motion detectors off back of my house..."

"Oh..."

"And was in my garage..."

"Oh, sorry..."

"Well, it's alright, I mean, there's a raccoon and a skunk living together in my garage..."

"Um, really?" I bit my lip.

He nodded vigorously. "They used to live under the front porch but I put moth balls there."

Note to self: moth balls keep animals from living together in sin.

Photo credit: Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger

On a serious note, we had an incident at the high school yesterday. Rumors were flying about a gun having been brought into the school. Bus stop conversation revealed that that wasn't so - there was a report of suspicious activity in front of the school, the middle and high schools (share a campus) followed lock down procedure, and the building was searched by the police. Nothing was found, well, except that the procedure is flawed and needs to be reviewed.

It's scary. I jokingly complain about the attitude of some of the staff at Lauren's school, but these are the people who are charged with executing these plans in assuring our children's safety. I'm not feeling good about that. Perhaps I'm seeing the exception and not the rule, but they seem pretty dissatisfied with their jobs.

My friends tell me these days I have volunteer-itis. I wanted to be involved because from the sidelines it seems that a lot of things go on that don't make a lot of sense. I'm involved now and still things don't make sense. I felt we'd achieved a victory by drafting that the kids can't be punished by taking away their recess, but that's meaningless if they're not safe on the playground, y'know?

I have no answers today.

Old cat, new tricks

Seamus is in the midst of some sort of mid-life crisis. He has been sneaking out of the house like a truant teenager. It seems he would prefer to spend his evenings alfresco, and come home in the afternoon for a snack and a trip to the litter box. Yesterday, around 2 PM, I heard him trying to open the front screen door with his paw. When it didn't work, he called with a loud meow for me to open it for him.

He hasn't messed the downstairs bathroom since we've been letting him out, though, I've been closing it when he comes in.

Shannon is happier, anyway. She's eating more. It's usually most apparent that Seamus is in a bad mood when Shannon drops some weight because he won't allow her downstairs.

I wonder if everyone else's cats are as neurotic as mine...

The worst birthday party ever

You know how much I enjoy parties. Heck, I had 3 of them this summer alone. Four if you count the dozen or so friends who had barbecue with us after the garage sale last weekend. I've become much better at keeping things pretty simple, finessing simple salad recipes, not spending 3 days cleaning my house for a 2 hour party.

During one of the summer street fairs, the girls and I visited the pottery/ Asian Arts center on Main Street. We toured the pottery studio, peeked in at the dance floor, and Lauren danced as they played their drums. The proprietress told me that they had birthday parties there, where the kids would paint figurines, enjoy a brought-in birthday cake, and then finish off the afternoon by playing drums and dancing around on their dance floor. About 6 weeks ago, I came back, was regaled with the same party scenario a second time, and paid my $50 deposit. "You can bring in any food and drink you'd like," she said. "And we just charge per piece, so about $15 per child."

So we ordered Lauren a Carvel Ice Cream Princess cake, and bought wine, cheese, crackers, and fruit. I had invited all the parents, figuring we would relax with snacks while someone else ran the show.

When we arrived, 15 minutes before party time, no one there knew we were supposed to be there. The woman working the pottery studio called Song, who was supposed to be our instructor. "She's about a half hour away."

So, Karen, Chris, and I set up our snacks, and I thought, well, 15 minutes late isn't too horrible. There was a Rutgers game yesterday at 3 and it was possible she was in traffic.

At 20 minutes past, the kids were restless. I went upstairs and selected pieces for all the kids. I realized Song was upstairs doing paperwork. "The kids are waiting..." I said. "I think we need to get started before they start running around the studio..."

She said, "Oh ok, I just got in, sorry. I will be right down."

She came down and began setting up paints and palettes for the kids, and passed out brushes. We parents hung back with our wine as the kids happily painted. About 20 minutes later, they were done and restless again, Song was nowhere to be found. We moved our pieces, cleared the palates, brushes, and paints, washed the kids up, and had Lauren start opening presents. Alec prepared the cake.

After cake, Song was still nowhere to be found. The kids were full of sugar and ready to run around. Alec and I looked at each other, weighing our options.

"I think we should just clean up and leave."

"I can't believe this." Alec said. "What was supposed to happen?"

I sighed. "This was the worst birthday party ever." I blinked away tears. But as I looked around, the kids seemed pretty happy. They'd painted stuff and eaten ice cream cake. As far as they were concerned, this had been a tremendous success.

From the Bronx Zoo

In the catbird's seat

We took a trip to the Bronx Zoo yesterday since the kids have off from school for Rosh Hashana. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and cool. "It'll be an easy drive," I told Fred, "since it's a holiday." I was right about the drive, but the Zoo was packed. It was the busiest either of us had ever seen it. Having avoided the huge line to enter, and survived the 40 minute food court line with 4 children in tow, here are some pictures I took in the Children's Zoo.

Paul and Lauren looking at the fish tank

Nicole and Lauren are a conjoined twin turtle

Fred feeding the sheep

Lindsay eating her raisins on the car ride home

A snapshot

I like this picture. It was taken in October 2002 and marked the first time I went out after Lauren was born. I look tired and pale. I even look a little pissed off. More accurately, I'm terrified and I thought the only way to get through that was to white-knuckle it. I'd fought a hard path to becoming a parent, and it was nothing like I'd thought it would be. I mean, I knew that babies wake up at all hours, but I don't think you can know what waking up every 2 hours for 4 months is like until you do it. You go through times where you're just too tired to even cry about it. At 28 in this picture, I had magical thinking that I would have kids and the rest of everything would suddenly become perfect. I think I've done some growing up since then.

For the year and change I've written this blog, I've known the title Abandon Hope doesn't suit it. There have been plenty of times - stretches of many years even - that I've felt faithless and deserted. But these past 5 years, I haven't been there. I haven't been dancing in fields of wheat either.

Yesterday I realized that the title of these over 600 little glimpses of my life, some of them funny and some of them whiny and annoying is Screw Perfection. A week before my 33rd birthday I realize that the times I'm happiest are the ones where I throw my hands in the air and don't try to be the perfect mom, wife, sister, daughter, or friend. It doesn't mean that I don't have plenty of personal goals, it just means that among them trying to be perfect isn't working for me. It's actually downright toxic.

So there it is. Screw Perfection.

What the hell is wrong with people?

Lindsay is cute as the dickens. She's just could-eat-her-up adorable. I know that. She's also a very tenacious little person who believes she can do just about anything. That's very cool, sure, but also hard when anything is to stand up in the shopping cart, yell "Whee!", and then plop down on one's bottom.

The woman who cooed over Lindsay in the line at Target didn't surprise me. She seemed very pleasant at first. She said hi, Lindsay said hi back. The woman was taken aback, as everyone is, because Lindsay is a small person and usually mistaken for younger. The woman held her hand in front of Lindsay, thinking she was going to hand her the stray clothing tag she held in her hand, but this is a Lindsay game where she pretends she will hand it to you, snatches it away, and then laughs. After this, the woman held her hand to be "slapped five", which Lindsay didn't oblige.

It was when the woman asked Lindsay if she wanted her to hold her that I became uncomfortable. By the time she asked Lindsay if she wanted to go for a walk around the store and pick out some candy that the adrenaline began pumping through me so fast that my ears were ringing.

I quickly scooped Lindsay up and held her on my hip. Lindsay snuggled her forehead against my cheek.

I'm sure she thought this was a perfectly pleasant interchange. I smiled and proceeded on to the checkout saying, "Bye bye, lady!" cheerfully rather than "What the hell made you think you were going to pick my daughter up out of my shopping cart and walk her around the store while I checked out, person I haven't met?"

My dad has a saying that goes something like "never attribute to malice what could be more easily explained by stupidity". I'm trying to hold out a little more faith for people than that, but damn, I was so certain in that moment this woman was trying to get her hands on my toddler. Too creepy.