April 19, 2006

this post has no real point, and would be so much better with pictures

Actual e-mail exchange with Jenorama:

Me: Look at me! I’m a soccer mom! Oh god.

Jen: I think you should make a special effort to wear a special outfit every time you go to soccer. Have a uniform: capri’s, polo shirts, cute socks, and espadrilles or cute, multi-colored sneakers. And then take pictures and post them to your blog.

Me: The Soccer Mom Photo Essay is a great idea; unfortunately, since I am COACHING Henry’s team (I know! What the hell?) I usually wear Clothes I Can Run In. Plus, I broke my fucking camera. Ha ha!

Maybe when I get my NEW camera, I’ll do some silly thing where I lay outfits on the bed and take pictures of them, and label them: soccer game, appointment with neurologist, playdate, Starbucks, therapy, day without kids . . . That could be really funny.

Jen: Throw in there also: do you dress up to go to the doctor? I do. I even dress up if I am going to drive for five hours, if I know I will be checking into a nice hotel at the end of it. I also dress up to fly. Because I think I get better service if I dress up for these things. Does this make me shallow? Even if it happens to be (in my experience) true?

On the other hand, when my husband used to make me wear stupid little jumpers to baseball, people were afraid I was a crazy polygamist woman and didn’t want to talk to me.

Words in this post that spell check doesn’t recognize: capris, espadrilles, fucking, Starbucks, polygamist.

Who said blogging is hard? This stuff just writes itself!

April 18, 2006

you’re smarter when you’re pink*

Remember when Friday Playdate used to be funny? You know, with charming stories about my kids and my drinking and my shoes? Remember that?

Thank you, all of you, for your kind comments and e-mails about my impending nervous breakdown. Today was a good day, if only because we’re firing the speech pathologist! Woo hoo! I am way to happy about that, aren’t I? But at this point, the money would be better spent on lipstick or a babysitter while we look for someone who can really help us. And who won’t feel compelled to remind me that I’m the parent–like I could forget, when I haven’t peed alone in nearly six years.

On top of that, my parents will be here in 60 hours (but who’s counting?). The boys are very excited, as am I, mostly because I’m planning to dump the boys with them and run away for the week. But shh! Don’t tell them! Or they might stay in Albuquerque.

In other news, I have been slowly making my way through the boys’ Easter candy. They each got a fairly large box of Runts, although now somehow we are down to half of one box, despite the fact that the boys don’t like Runts and Wade is afraid to eat them as they are “too hard.” I don’t know how that has happened, or where the other box and a half went. Really.

How you can tell that this summer is going to be really REALLY hot: it’s in the 90s here now (yes, 90 degrees!) but when Charlie and I went to buy a kiddie pool today, there weren’t any. Because it’s not supposed to be THIS hot in April. Like I didn’t already know that.

Tonight, just for entertainment, I said to Charlie, “How was your day, buddy?” (He had a good day; I know this because he was WITH ME the ENTIRE TIME).

“It was BAD,” he said sadly.

“Really? Why?”

“Because there were DRAGONS EVERYWHERE!” he said, and laughed. And he’s the normal one.

Finally, this: over the weekend, I told Henry that he could take my camera to school this Friday for show and tell, because he was being so very careful with it and taking such great pictures and having such a wonderful time. We were going to print the pictures he took and make a little album for his teacher and copies for his friends. And then yesterday at the zoo I dropped the camera on the pavement and broke it.

Isn’t that funny?

Nooooo, it’s really not.

Photos by Henry.

*It’s a line from Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. Wade bought it for the boys (who are spoiled) and he has been justifying it by saying, over and over, “It’s a very sweet movie.” Which I think is very sweet as well.

April 17, 2006

hide-and-seek

This morning, Charlie and I were sitting on the benches outside Henry’s school, waiting to pick him up. Another mom was there with her toddler; he and Charlie were checking each other out while the other mom (someone I know only from seeing at carpool pickup and the occasional music program) smiled politely at each other. Her son licked the bench, and she reprimanded him, and then explained: “He is pretending to be a puppy. He goes around licking EVERYTHING.”

“We do that, too,” I told her. “It’s disgusting.” We both laughed.

It’s hard to explain how labor-intensive my children are; parents of quirky kids like Henry innately understand, and parents of typical kids like Charlie just can’t. I don’t say that with any resentment or anger, it’s just a fact. It takes so much time and effort and energy to parent my kids these days. We are trying to encourage (read: compel) Henry to stop obsessing about superheros and get interested in other things because his single-mindedness is causing some social and behavioral problems. But redirecting him takes a lot of work; if he’s left on his own, he always falls back on superheros. So I try to plan what we will do next–play outside (not superheros!), build with blocks (not superhero headquarters!), read stories (not Spiderman!). And no matter what we’re doing or playing, eventually he will start to talk about superheros, and my job is to redirect the conversation. Of course, this means that Charlie gets ignored or has to play what Henry is playing, even though he’s perfectly capable of playing on his own without any direction.

Last week, when I told the speech therapist that we were concerned about Henry’s superhero obsession because of the way it was interfering with his play, she said, “Well, YOU’RE the parent.”

I was stunned; was she implying that his hyperfocus was MY fault? That I wasn’t parenting him the “right” way? When I told Wade, he said that it pointed to her inexperience with kids like Henry, not any fault of my parenting, and I think he’s right. But it’s still irritating, in part because there is a grain of truth in it. Part of my job is to help Henry learn how to play; part of my job is to constantly redirect him. It’s the part I am coming to hate the most.

So today, when this other mom and I were laughing about our children and their puppy dog tongues, she said, very nicely, “Do you work, or do you stay home?”

“I stay home,” I said.

“Do you miss working?”

Without hesitating, I said, “Yes. I really do. The older my children get, the more I miss it. Yes.”

She nodded. “Because they need us so much less as they get older.”

And I wanted to say, no, because they need me so much MORE. And because I need me so much more.

Charlie is going through a funny little baby love phase. The other day I took the boys to a restaurant for lunch; while we were waiting for our food, another family came in, with a toddler who was probably 18 months old. He came totting by our table, twice, and Charlie watched him, fascinated. The second time he came by, Charlie waved and said, “Hi!” and then, as the little boy totted away, Charlie said, “He’s so CUTE!” Today, at the zoo, we passed another toddler in a stroller; Charlie said, “I see a baby! Look how CUTE she is!” I am amazed by his attention to smaller kids, by his gentleness and fascination.

A lot of the time, Henry seems disconnected from the rest of our little family, in his own world, but then, out of nowhere, he will have an almost inappropriately intense response to something. Like missing Kinderfit on Wednesdays. He cried the entire way home from school today, and for half an hour after, because he doesn’t want to go to speech therapy any more. I’ve been trying to help him understand why he has to go, why he has to have the special applesauce in the morning, why he’s not going to school in the afternoons any more. I’m not very good at it, this explaining. And it breaks my heart when he cries like that.

We played outside this afternoon until it was too hot to move, and then came inside. Henry was asking if he could play superheros, but before I could say, no, let’s play something else, he said, “Let’s play hide-and-seek!” And I remembered my friend Cheryl saying that she loves to play hide and seek with her sons because it gives her ten or fifteen minutes of peace and quiet while they search for her. “Sometimes,” she said, “I fall asleep.”

So I hid in the guest room, on the floor, between the bed and the wall, where it was dark and cool and quiet. I could hear the boys going through the house, yelling, “Found you, Mommy!” and then laughing when I wasn’t wherever they were looking. Henry would say, “Wait! We need to make a plan! Maybe she’s in her closet!” And Charlie kept saying, “I think she’s GONE!” Eventually, they decided that they needed to put on their bunny ears, so they could hear me. During all of this, they were running past the guest room door, laughing and calling, “Mommy! Mommy? Where are you?” When they finally found me, they piled on top of me, delighted with themselves. “I thought you were GONE!” Charlie shrieked, laughing.

“Where would I go?” I asked.

“Nana and Papa’s!” he said.

“You know I would never leave, right?”

“Right,” Henry said.

I’ve been thinking a lot about going back to work–actually, I’ve been thinking about HAVING work to do, and having TIME to do it. I have all sorts of ideas and projects, and I am working on a few specific things. I’ve actually finished one big thing and sent it off. But mostly, on a day like today, I just wonder if wanting to work is just another form of playing hide-and-seek and hoping for a little rest.

April 16, 2006

deja vu all over again

There is a moment in The Matrix where Neo (Keanu Reeves) sees a black cat–twice. “Whoa,” he says, in uber-Keanu Reeves voice, “Deja vu!” The other characters get flustered; in the matrix, deja vu is the product of a glitch in the program, they tell Neo, a sign of something bad.

I know how they feel.

At 1:00 am Saturday morning, Charlie came and climbed in bed next to me. We are big on everyone sleeping in their OWN beds, but the boys know that if something is really wrong, they can come in our bed. Something was clearly wrong with Charlie; he was feverish and sad and spent the next few hours sucking his thumb and moaning and sticking his fingers in my nose. At 4:00 am, he insisted that we go get in HIS bed, which isn’t nearly as comfortable as mine, but I was feeling bad for him, so we moved and I spent the next two hours with my ass hanging off the side of the bed (because I had put the bedrail down so I could sleep more comfortably–or not, as it turned out). Charlie got up at 8:00; we gave him some Tylenol and got ready to go to the pediatrician’s office (you have to love any pediatric practice that has SATURDAY office hours–when I called, the nurse said, ‘How soon can you be here?’ and I said, “RIGHT NOW!”). The nurse did a throat culture because Charlie spent the night telling me that his “mouth hurts!” which is three-year-old for sore throat.

Does this sound familiar? It should–Charlie has strep throat. Again! If you’re not keeping track of the boy’s infections, this is twice in four weeks, and three times since December. Which is a lot of strep infections.

Charlie has apparently inherited my blue eyes, my chubby cheeks, my thumb sucking, and my propensity for repeat strep infections. Fortunately, I have outgrown both the thumb sucking and the strep (well, mostly), although I could very well wind up with strep, since the boy spent an entire night with his fingers up my nose. And that might cause me to start sucking my thumb again.

Fortunately, Charlie has a pretty strong bounce-back mechanism; after being awake most of the night, insisting that we sleep in my bed! then his bed! then asking for Daddy! then Mommy! and crying hysterically, which HAD to hurt, he finally fell asleep around 5:45 and slept for a couple of hours. When he got up, he was happy and calm and ate a waffle (how does he DO that, with a strep infection?) and watched Charlie and Lola* and then went happily with me to the doctor. When the nurse came in to do the throat culture, he opened up and let her swab his throat; afterwards, of course, he said, “I don’t like when she puts that thing in my mouth.” Me either, son.

The doctor did tell me that seven strep infections in one calendar year, or three in a season, will most likely result in a tonsillectomy. Isn’t that GREAT? When I told Wade he said, “Oh NOOO!” Exactly.

Seriously–NOTHING can go wrong this week. Right? RIGHT??? Right.

*This Charlie and Lola site takes longer to load, but it is even cuter than the Disney site–trust me!

April 14, 2006

say cheese–no, actually, don’t

A while ago (more than two weeks but less than a month, I would guess) I went to SuperTarget for groceries. The terrific thing about SuperTarget, of course, is that while you are waiting for the EXTRA SLOW deli employee to very carefully slice and weigh your meunster cheese (and then ask you no less than THREE times how much you wanted), you have time to realize that you really need new shower curtain liners in the bathrooms. And that the rings holding up the shower curtain in the kids’ bathroom probably also need to be replaced. So after you have FINALLY gotten your half pound of menunster cheese, you can finish the shopping, including picking out the new, basic white shower curtain liners and spiffy clear plastic rings, pay for everything, and be on your merry way.

At least that’s how it happened for me, some little while ago (again, best guess: more than two weeks, but less than a month. Remember that).

I brought the groceries home that day, put them all away, and then decided that I would deal with changing the shower curtain liners later (by which I mean, see who I could sucker into doing it for me). At lunchtime, Wade asked if I had gotten any cheese and I said Yes! Indeed! It’s in the fridge! But it wasn’t. First I thought maybe I left it in the cart, then I thought maybe the clerk hadn’t put it in with my groceries, but finally I had to admit that I probably threw it away with the grocery bags (no we don’t recycle them. Don’t get distracted–this story has a point). Anyway, no cheese. I bought some more a few days later and we went on with our lives.

This morning, when I was straightening up before the housekeeper came (read: cleaning for the cleaning lady) I decided that I would ask her to put up the new shower curtain liners, after she cleaned the bathrooms. What could be nicer than going into the weekend with clean bathrooms AND spanking white curtain liners? Yesterday, when I was putting the boys’ humidifiers away (because now that it’s in the 90s here, we don’t really seem to NEED them any more) I saw the bag with the new liners in it, in a drawer in the boys’ bathroom. So I went in and got the bag out.

And guess what I found in with the shower curtain liners? That’s right–the missing half pound of meunster cheese!

All my heart attack symptoms came right back.

April 13, 2006

picture this

Henry and I had an ENTIRE day together today, because of the Passover holiday, so we whiled it away by taking literally hundreds of pictures with my digital camera. Okay, actually Henry took pictures and I surfed the ‘net, but whatever! He had a good time, and I was amazed by how much fun he had. And by the fact that we had to replace the camera’s batteries TWICE. I think this may be the excuse I need to upgrade to a Rebel–you know, so that he can have my little digital camera. Do you think Wade will go for that?

I have to admire Henry’s creativity; he took picures of EVERYTHING and from EVERY angle. He got down under furniture and looked up at the ceiling; he took a picture of my ear (which you won’t be seeing) because he thought it was interesting. Right now he’s taking close-ups of our sofa. I think my favorites, though, are his self-portraits, because they are so unselfconscious. And I just like the shot of his hair.


We have an odd assortment of toys at our house: several Schleich knights, two Pottery Barn dinosaurs, and probably ten Bounty paper towel rolls. Guess what gets played with the most?



While the boy was photographing every surface in my house (including the hardwood floors, in all their dusty glory), I was reading Parents Like Us, a collaborative blog written by a group of moms and dads, including a high school friend of my brother’s. Kim has a daughter Henry’s age and twin boys who are Charlie’s age (god bless her). These posts in particular made me laugh, for obvious reasons. Go! Read! Enjoy!

Laugh at someone else’s kids for a change.

I showed Henry this post, so he could see his pictures, and he said, “Didn’t you put up the picture of your EAR? That’s a GREAT picture.”