November 30, 2005

Charlie has a new favorite word

It’s ‘hooker.’

Last night he and Wade were hanging out in his room (which means that Wade was half asleep on the bed and Charlie was taking EVERY SINGLE THING out of his closet and piling it all in the middle of the floor). He came hopping out of the closet and said happily, ‘Daddy, look what I have!’

Without opening his eyes, Wade said, ‘What is it, buddy?’

‘It’s a HOOKER!’ Charlie announced, waving a hanger in the air. ‘I found it in my closet!’

Wade said, ‘Go show Mommy. And be sure you tell her what it is.’

He came running into Henry’s room, waving the hanger and yelling, ‘Mommy! I found a hooker in my closet! I have a whole bunch of them in there!’

And I said, ‘Can you say, “This sure is a purty hooker?”‘

Then Wade got him to say, ‘This is my favorite hooker!’

I’m pretty sure there was something about it costing ten dollars, too. It went on like that all evening.

This morning at breakfast, he said to me, ‘Where’s my hooker?’ And when we left for school, he said, ‘Can I take my hooker to Starbucks with me?’ At that point it just got wierd (he was carrying a red, child-size hanger around with him!) so I made myself stop laughing and talked him in to taking some superheros in the car. And that was the end of the hooker.

November 29, 2005

WARNING: this post includes talk of severed body parts (well, not completely severed, but close enough)

Because Whiffleboy asked:

People are always asking me how I stay in shape; I like to say, ‘You’ve not spent much time with my kids, have you?’ We are constantly one good thunk away from the emergency room, particularly with Henry, who is, uh, energetic AND has an INCREDIBLY high pain tolerance (seriously, it makes me nervous. Someday he’s going to break a bone and not realize it until its too late, whatever that means). We have a very nice after-hours triage line at Children’s Hospital, where you can talk to a nurse at, say, three am when your child has croup (done that!) or at six pm when he slams head first into a door frame (done THAT!) or on a Sunday when he informs you that he has cut his finger on what may or may not have been a rusty nail (you all remember that, yes?). I’ve called the help line so many times that two of the nurses REMEMBER me and will ask how the last call turned out. It’s embarassing.

But somehow (touch wood) we’ve only been to the ER once. Well, okay, we’ve TECHNICALLY had two ER-type emergencies, but the first time, when Henry fell and hit his head on the diving board of a friend’s pool and had to have stitches, we didn’t actually GO to the ER, since our host was a doctor; we just zipped out to his office and voila! Stiches in the back of my three-year-old’s head.

But the ER–right. A year ago March, one early early morning, I was trying to make coffee; the clock on the microwave said 6:14. Wade and the boys were in the family room; the boys wanted him to read to them and were bringing him books. I could hear them jockying for position (’My book first! MY BOOK FIRST!’) and then there was a thunk, and Henry started screaming. Wade said, in that exaggeratedly calm voice adults use when ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE but they are trying not to scare the children, ‘I think you should come look at this.’ And I though, jesus, all I want is some COFFEE.

Wade was on the hardwood floor holding Henry, who was bleeding EVERYWHERE. It was like a horror movie. A lovely Ikea sidetable had fallen over and sliced the tip off his big toe. I don’t mean scraped the surface of the skin–I mean SLICED THE TIP OFF HIS TOE (the hunk of skin was still stuck to the underside of the table). I said, in my Overly Calm Adult Voice, ‘Okay, I think we should go to the emergency room.’ Wade said, ‘Yes, I think so too. I need to get dressed.’ I said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ Meanwhile, Henry is SCREAMING and Charlie is peeking out from behind a chair.

Henry, who doesn’t seem to understand that Mommy doesn’t do well with blood, is INSISTING that I hold him, so I plunk him in my lap and try to look at the ceiling as much as possible. Wade calls his parents (because I’m not taking Charlie with me to the ER, no way) and when my father-in-law answers the phone, he says, ‘We’re taking Henry to the emergency room and we’re bringing Charlie to your house.’ And he hangs up. We load everyone in the car; Henry is still bleeding and is alternating between yelling, ‘MOMMY! I’M SCARED!’ and howling, ‘WHY DID CHARLIE KNOCK THE TABLE OVER ON MY FOOT?’ Wade asks me, ‘Do you want to drive?’

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘I do NOT want to drive.’

We pull into my in-laws’ driveway and fling Charlie at them. He’s still in his pyjamas and hasn’t had a clean diaper. ‘We’ll call you!’ Wade yells and we peel out.

At the hospital, I try to talk Henry into letting Daddy take him in to the ER, as he is STILL bleeding, but he sobs ‘No, I want MOMMY! YOU take me in! Please, Mommy!’ The waiting room is completely deserted and there is no one at the desk. Finally the receptionist appears, summoned I’m sure by Henry’s wails, and says, ‘Can I help you?’

Henry yells, ‘Charlie knocked a table over on my foot and I’m SCARED!’

The receptionist says, ‘Go right through that door.’ I realize later that not only is Henry bleeding and crying, but I am also covered in blood. I’m sure that expedited things. At the least, it seemed to have startled the receptionist a little.

The thing about the ER is this: if you go on a Saturday night, it’s busy. Gunshots, stabbings, sick kids, you name it. (At least that’s what it was like the night we took my grandmother.) Go on a Wednesday morning, and you’ve got the whole place to yourself. Two nurses cleaned Henry’s foot up, another took our insurance information, and a fourth (god bless her) brought me coffee. Henry was fascinated by the cleaning and examining and bandaging part of the experience; he stopped crying and asked all sorts of questions about what the nurse was doing, and told everyone who asked that Charlie had knocked a table over on his toe. To distract him, Wade told him about the time that he (Wade) broke his brother’s leg. They were playing Skateboard Joust, which involved knocking each other off the skateboards (duh). My brother-in-law still swears that Wade ruined his NCAA basketball career, although I think some of the blame needs to go to the doctor who misdiagnosed the broken leg until it really WAS too late and they had to re-break it, which is a very bad thing. ‘Was Uncle Wes mad at you?’ Henry asked. ‘Sure,’ Wade told him, ‘but it was an accident.’ Henry stared at him. ‘Is Uncle Wes STILL mad at you?’ ‘No,’ Wade said, ‘that was a long time ago.’

Henry thought about this. ‘Well, I’m still mad at Charlie, but when we grow up, I won’t be.’

The doctor came to look at his foot and told us he wanted it X rayed, although he didn’t think it was broken, and he asked AGAIN what had happened. ‘My brother knocked a table over on it,’ Henry said, ‘and I’m mad at him. But Daddy broke Uncle Wes’s leg, and he’s not mad any more, so I won’t be mad at Charlie forever. It was an accident.’ The doctor just laughed.

There were no broken bones, and nothing to stitch up (since the table had CUT THE TIP OF HIS TOE COMPLETELY OFF) so they bandaged him up and sent us home with a prescription for some Vicodan. We loaded him up with that and he was like a drunk fraternity pledge. He kept patting me on the face and saying, ‘I LUUUUUVE you Mommy. I luuuuvve you.’ It was pretty funny.

And for DAYS afterwards, every time he thought of it, he would say, ‘Charlie, I’m mad at you for knocking the table over on my toe, but when we grow up I won’t be mad any more.’ But the best part? Wade swears, to this day, that it was HENRY who bumped the table and sent it crashing over. On to his own foot. Silly boy.

November 28, 2005

the butter people

Yesterday, during the boys’ Enforced Rest Time, I was surfing the Interwebs, trying to get a handle on my Christmas shopping (okay, no I wasn’t; I was reading blogs. I am in deep denial that Christmas is only WEEKS away, as I have purchased NOTHING and am overly aggravated by grandmotherly type people asking what the boys need–they don’t need anything). Anyway, via Mamazine, I came across Linda Hirschman’s provocative essay about the feminist politics of the opt-out “revolution,” and I found myself thinking OH MY GOD SHE’S RIGHT. And it was killing me.

Hirschman’s theory is essentially this (yes, I think you should read the whole essay, but it’s long and you are busy so I will summarize): “while the public world has changed, albeit imperfectly, to accommodate women among the elite, private lives have hardly budged. The real glass ceiling is at home.” What does this mean? It means, as Judith Warner argues, that the “choice” to stay home is not a choice per se, but a default acquiescence to generations of gender stereotyping. It is a fall into the model where the half of a couple with the uterus gestates and births and feeds the baby–and, while she’s at it, feeds the rest of the family and cleans the bathrooms and drives to doctor appointments and plans craft projects and . . . you get the idea. While the half of the couple with the penis conquers the world.

Yes, I exaggerate, and no, this isn’t (exactly) how it works at my house. I do not have gainful employment (unless you are counting this web site, and that won’t be “gainful” until you people CLICK THOSE GOOGLE ADS a few more times). But I am one of the women that Hirschman talks about, whether I like it or not. I am able to stay home because we do not, honestly, need my income, and I am aware how fortunate I am to be in that position. Yet Hirschman argues that this kind of rhetoric is a large part of the problem–discussing the “choice” to stay home in terms of economic “need” ignores the intellectual and social needs of women. She writes about “the feminist moral analysis that choice avoided: The family — with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks — is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government. This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust.”

While I agree with Hirschman, I still like to think of myself as a feminist, as someone who did not buy into the Father Knows Best narrative of domesticity (really, who vacuums in a dress and heels?). I kept my own name when I got married, despite the fact that it confuses the insurance company. And while I really DID choose to stay home when Henry was born, I did not necessarily chose to be a “housewife” (a term I despise even more than “SAHM”).

I am, in fact, a complete failure at the “housewife” part of this job. I don’t cook, I pay someone else to clean, and my motivation in doing laundry is entirely selfish (I am particular about the laundry–get over it). I love my children, and for all kinds of reasons I am thankful that I do not “have” to work, but my god there are days when I crave the company of adults–not just other mommies, but people who have read the New York Times recently or have actually FINISHED a novel or seen a movie BEFORE it comes to the dollar theater. My friends and I talk about how much we wish we could do these things, but we’re not actually doing them–we’re too busy scraping Playdough off the hardwood floors or loading the dishwasher or making doctors appointments. Or whatever it is we do all day with the kids. Because often, at the end of the day, I wonder–what DID I do today?

Hirschman, however, sees a way out: “The home-economics trap involves superior female knowledge and superior female sanitation. The solutions are ignorance and dust. Never figure out where the butter is. ‘Where’s the butter?’ Nora Ephron’s legendary riff on marriage begins. In it, a man asks the question when looking directly at the butter container in the refrigerator. ‘Where’s the butter?’ actually means butter my toast, buy the butter, remember when we’re out of butter. Next thing you know you’re quitting your job at the law firm because you’re so busy managing the butter. If women never start playing the household-manager role, the house will be dirty, but the realities of the physical world will trump the pull of gender ideology. Either the other adult in the family will take a hand or the children will grow up with robust immune systems.”

I have never managed the butter at our house, and I think it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. I struggle with the mommy thing, not so much because my children are not who I expected them to be, or even because I am not the mommy I imagined I would be, but because I don’t want to do the “housewife” things. I would rather spend my child-free time reading long essays about the failure of third-wave feminism, because that makes me a better wife and mother and member of society. And one could argue that I took all this on–the kids, the housework, the butter–when I decided to leave my job and “stay home.” One could argue that Wade goes to work and doesn’t get to choose what he does and does not do there. But I think that misses the point. Wade’s job does not define him as a person; mine does. And Hirschman is right, the mommy job defines us not by our intellect or our social activism but by our gender, and heaps on us the gender expectations of a century ago.

For the longest time, Charlie went around yelling, “You’re supposed to help the butter people!” We were baffled by this, until we realized that it was his mis-hearing of a line from The Incredibles (”You’re supposed to help OUR people!”). I don’t want to be one of the butter people; I don’t want to be the mommy all the time. And I am torn between knowing that for my family, having me “at home,” making doctors appointments and playing soccer and reading Harry Potter aloud is the best possible thing and feeling like I have somehow compromised both myself and my family by conforming to (and thus confirming) the gender stereotypes.

And you wonder why it takes so much coffee to get through my day.

November 22, 2005

have a Cookie

Last night, as we were contemplating our dinner options (we settled on pizza), Wade said, ‘I don’t think Charlie should have any treats tonight.’

‘I thought you said he had a good day?’

‘He did. But as far as I can tell, all he’s eaten since breakfast is three cookies and a brownie.’

Well okay! He did not eat the sandwiches (when I asked how his feast was, he said, ‘Great! I did not eat a sandwich’) nor did anyone else; he brought virtually every damn one home. But we’re not eating them–as Wade pointed out, you can’t tell how many were actually touched by a random three-year-old. And it is flu season, after all.

So Charlie was jumping off the furniture until bedtime, when he crashed immediately into a serious post-sugar coma. But he didn’t get out of bed ONCE last night! Maybe the bedtime solution is more sugar during the day? Today, of course, we have much to do in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I will be giving him some of Henry’s meds to counteract any lingering sugar effect (I’m kidding, people, really. If anyone is going to take Henry’s meds, it’s me. No, still kidding).

Henry and I spent yesterday at the OU Child Study Center, where he had his full-body workup (results guaranteed in ten to fourteen days). We were there for over seven hours, and Henry was a trooper, although the lovely lovely neuropsychologist did confirm my sense that he’s STILL not on ENOUGH medication–he was peaceful and charming in the morning, but at some point shortly after the lunch break he stood on the table in her office. Twice. Ha ha ha! While he was having the bejesus tested out of him (IQ tests, language assessment, swimsuit competition, the works), I was reading magazines in the waiting room, which SHOULD have been fun! Yes? I mean, magazines! What could be better!

Except for this: they were all PARENTING magazines. Okay, so what else would you expect at a pediatric diagnostic center? But if you’re AT the Child Study Center killing time during the barrage of tests, you clearly have a child who is NOT following the typical trajectory for a child of his or her age, and thus a child who is NOT described by these magazines. Seriously, if my problems with Henry could be solved by the wonderful people at Better Parenting* magazine, don’t you think I would have saved my money and gone with their very chipper suggestions about discipline and Introducing New Foods? Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be able to help me. AND they make me feel like a failure as a parent. Go figure!

So there I am, reading about how Changing Your Discipline Approach (do the opposite of what you usually do! It works! Really!) will actually allow your children to discipline THEMSELVES and thinking, whatever, lady, let me drop MY kids at your house for three days and see how this whole let-them-work-it-out-themselves works with the kid with no social skills when I see it: Cookie magazine.

You’ve seen this, yes? If not, take a Mommy Break this weekend and flip through it (note that I did NOT say ‘buy it’–go to the bookstore and get a nice caffe au lait and LOOK at it. But really, save your $3.50). It’s like Vogue meets Parents meets Real Simple; it bills itself as ‘inspiration and information for the woman within the mother.’ I don’t even know what that MEANS! But they suggest that your husband should buy you lingere for Christmas–specifically a $500.00 camisole (it’s sparkly!) and $300.00 ‘tap pants’ (do the tap shoes come with them? and do I actually have to TAP in those things? ’cause they’re mighty small, especially for my Mom Ass). And they swear this is lingere we will like to wear. Really? To do what, exactly? I mean, for $800.00, I should be going to a party in this lingere. At the White House.

Speaking of parties, here’s a really GOOD idea from the nice folks at Cookie for your baby’s first birthday: have a COCKTAIL PARTY! For your (apparently childless) friends! The first birthday is, after all, when ‘you, too, settle comfortably–even confidently–into the role of parent. In addition to the celebration of your child’s birth, think of the event as a toast to your rebirth as an adult.’ You know, drag out your Price Upon Request cocktail dress and drink until you can’t remember where you put the baby! What fun!

What the hell is that all about? Comfortable? Confident? My rebirth as an adult? And I need a silk cocktail dress for all of this? Well no wonder I feel like such a bad mother–I thought the birthday parties were about the BABY, not me, AND I’m not dressed right! Thank god I know NOW! So since I have all those mini-sandwiches in the fridge, I think I’ll just throw together a cocktail party for the kids this weekend. To reclaim my adulthood and all.

But first I need a doughnut.

*I made that up–I don’t want to pick on any specific parenting magazine. Okay, except for Cookie, but THEY HAD IT COMING. Seriously.

November 21, 2005

an open letter to Charlie’s teachers

Dear Ms. D and Ms. S,

Here are the mini-sandwiches for today’s Thanksgiving Feast. Charlie is very excited about the feast, although he has told me no fewer than TEN TIMES that he will not eat these sandwiches. This is fine with me.

I was a little baffled by your request that I send ‘mini-sandwiches’, as I am not sure what precisely constitutes a ‘mini-sandwich’ or why you would ask for such, especially as I don’t typically make the ‘mini’ variety of sandwich for my own children. I can’t really imagine you were hoping for some nice prosciutto on cocktail rye, as that seemed a little frivolous for three and four-year-olds and I assume you will not actually be serving any cocktails, yes? So I opted for turkey and ham and Meunster cheese on a nice wheat bread. As for the ‘mini’ part, I just made normal sandwiches and cut them into quarters. See–mini! But I’m still not sure Charlie or anyone else his age will be eating them.

And yes, I realize that I could have bought a turkey or cornucopia cookie cutter and made the sandwiches into lovely crustless shapes, which would have been very very cute and festive, but really I am just swamped right now (I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping and I have a long list of family commitments to mangle out of this week). And I should have had these catered, especially since I spent nearly as much on the bread and meat and cheese as it would have cost to have the grocery store deli make a sandwich tray, you know, with the little cocktail bread, but it didn’t occur to me in time. I’m not very good with this whole sandwich thing–Charlie ususally brings a tortilla and a cheese stick in his lunch–is that why you asked me to bring sandwiches? To see if I really knew how to make one? Is that it?

Truth be told, I am a little peeved that I was assigned the mini-sandwiches (which were, after all, a bit of a hassle, what with the arranging and cutting and did I mention that NO ONE WILL EAT THESE?) when the mommy of the child who has the cubby next to Charlie’s was assigned to bring DOUGHNUTS for god’s sake, all she has to do is drive through at the Krispy Kreme and voila! while I had to actually MAKE THE SANDWICHES which took, goodness, a whole ten minutes. And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to do it, but still, couldn’t I have brought the doughnuts? Preschoolers LOVE doughnuts, they love mommies who bring doughnuts–but mini-sandwiches? Not so much.

Anyway, it’s very nice of you to do this, and Charlie is really looking forward to it, especially the doughnuts, which is probably why he won’t be eating any sandwiches. And I hope you all know that on my list of Things I Am Thankful For, you are right there in the Top Ten, because you are so wonderful to my little Froggie. Enjoy the sandwiches, because I’m not bringing them home again, and have a very Happy Thanksgiving! And, if it’s possible, could you save me a doughnut?

Sincerely, Charlie’s Mommy

November 19, 2005

ahhh . . .

I am feeling triumphant today–not only did I redesign the template for this site ALL BY MY SELF (a near-miracle in itself, what with me being the English major type and the one in my family who tends to say things like, ‘CPU? That’s what you do when someone has a heart attack, right?’) but I cleaned out Charlie’s closet, which was so crammed with god only knows what that we couldn’t get the doors closed (which was a problem the other night when his bedtime stall tactic was ‘The closet scares me! Close the doors!’). So Wade took the boys to the park and I took every damn thing out of that closet and filled up two trash bags of crap and a Luvs box of give-aways. Then I hid the trash and the donations before the boys came home, to avoid the inevitable and painful ‘No! We still play with that! And I can still wear those shoes! Don’t give that away!’ Don’t worry, I didn’t toss anything they ACTUALLY play with or wear (well, okay, I did put Charlie’s fancy Nike tennis shoes in the give-away box, because they are a size SEVEN and he wears a TEN now, but last week he found the shoes and has been cramming his feet into them in some wierd Michael Jordan-inspired foot biding ritual. And I can’t take it. And no I didn’t buy him Nikes, my mother-in-law did, and she got them on clearance for $7.00. Any other questions?)

And I had good intentions of cleaning off my desk, which is covered with maps drawn by the boys and books we have bought for birthday presents (but never delivered to the Birthday Children in question) and articles about Intelligent Design from the New York Times and bills to pay after the holiday and . . . ugh. And I was planning to write, today, about something really smart, like my theories about what might have caused Henry’s ADHD, or something fun like how very sexy my new pink suede shoes are. Instead, though, I think I’m going to fold laundry and watch college football. And give my poor brain a rest, while I ride the wave of my triumph over HTML and closet clutter.