It's not like a cat...

My Breasts Have Names

2012-01-26T11:52:00.003-05:00

Betcha didn't know my breasts have names.

I didn't name them. I could barely come up with a name for my second child, let alone for my breasts.

Ben named them. It took me a long time to realize it, but these are his actual names for my breasts:

"Other side!" That is my left breast. It's the one he prefers to start with. "Other side! Sit down! Other side!" I've tried to explain to him that it's not the other side if it is the one he is starting with; it's just "that side."

He disagrees strongly. In fact, "that side" is the name of my right breast, according to him.

"Which side do you want, Ben?"

"That side!"

You might think this is just a fluke, that he's just pointing at it and saying "That side!" But no.

"Ben, why don't you start on the right this time?"

"No! Other side! OTHER SIDE!" The left one is his favorite, by far.

Another test:

"Ben, which one do you want?"

"Other side!" pointing to and moving toward the left one.

Another test:

"Ben, which breast do you want?"

"Other side!" practically leaping for the left one.

When he finishes on "other side," he then clambers around, telling me, "That side! THAT SIDE!" while going for the right breast.

These are not the most exciting names one could have for one's breasts; nor do they entirely make sense, really.

But there you have it: "That side" and "Other side." Not usually in that order of preference, for him.

And yes, only Ben is allowed to call them that.

When the Life Buoy No Longer Matters

2012-01-24T20:33:00.006-05:00

An adventure race called "Death Spartan" or some such...it begins at 4 a.m., running through the dark, then crawling upstream in cold water under yards and yards of barbed wire in the dark, carrying an ax and a bucket. You then find a tree stump with your bib number stapled to it. Chop down the tree stump, put it in the bucket, and crawl back down the muddy barbed-wire stream. Run back to the starting line. And then the race actually begins.

Normally, this sort of thing would excite my every nerve. I'd be checking deal sites for lightweight axes, finding out if I had to bring my own five-gallon bucket, and deciding how, exactly, I'd sell the idea to C (not for him to race with me, necessarily, but to support my spending a weekend in such a crazy, useless fashion). I'd learn what kind of training I'd need for the 48-hour race. I'd be planning my race nutrition. It would be all I could think about.

But yesterday, watching the video...nothing. Not only did I not really care, but I actually found myself thinking, "That looks really unappealing." I don't mind mud and barbed wire, but crawling through cold water would annoy me these days.

Weird.

The sprint (3-mile or 1-hour) version of this race didn't appeal to me, but that didn't surprise me; usually the more extreme version of a race is what really gets me going.

Hmmm.

I got an email from the organizer of the local "Will Race for Beer" series. Beer? Running? Me? I'll do the entire series, please! Except no. I again found myself thinking, "Ennnnhhhhhh. Who cares? No thanks. Whatever."

Am I dead?

I checked out the websites of the local running clubs and check on registration for the local St. Paddy's Day run, a very fun local tradition. I no longer have the patience for 5000 runners in a 4-mile race, a narrow .2-mile finishing chute (one year a friend was forced to walk the final part of the race, because it was too crammed to run), and the local pubs much too packed to enter for the free post-race beer...no thanks. No thanks? Me?

Yeah. I don't care.

And as for this Sunday's long run, I nearly emailed my trail-running group to suggest we do a long trail run instead of a road run. But then I realized I don't want to run this weekend. Road or trail.

I don't get it. It could be because I feel like crap. I feel round and tired and squishy and tired and low-energy and...tired. Running no longer excites me. The thought of skiing doesn't excite me. Or mountain biking (the snow melted already!). I get to yoga a few times a week, and I still look forward to that, but that's about it. That, and I still feel joy biking fast around town.

So I guess I'm not entirely dead yet.

But I feel strange. Maybe I'm coming down with a virus. Maybe I'm teetering on the edge of another plunge into depression (oh, please, no...). Maybe I have a massive case of ennui. I don't know.

I do know that if the one thing I counted on as a stabilizer no longer interests me, I am left wondering if I'm just adrift now. Maybe there's something else I'm supposed to be turning my attention to. I don't feel like considering other goals. I want to know why this thing that was so important to me has vanished so suddenly.

But maybe it is time to be soft and squishy and do something else.

Or just eat cookies, drink wine, and sleep.

Short Lists

2012-01-23T21:23:00.002-05:00

Two Very Middle-Class Complaints:

1. I hate when the cleaning lady puts my favorite headlamp somewhere strange, like the potato-and-onion basket, so I cannot find it when I get up before dawn to go for a trail run and instead have to take my reading-in-the-tent headlamp or else one of Max's. Because yes, my three-year-old owns more than one headlamp. Of course, it is totally possible (and more likely) that Ben is the one who put it there.

2. I have to go back to Whole Foods to get the correct brand of key lime flavor soy yogurt for Max. Because, see, there's actually more than one brand of that stuff, and he likes the other kind.

One Very Cute Baby's Excuse That is Too Baby-Related to Post to Facebook:

1. Ben, stalling at bedtime, said--as I was about to turn out the light--"Poop!"
"Do you have to poop, Ben?" I asked.
He nodded. "Poop! Pee! Potty!"
"You want to poop and pee on the potty?"
Vigorous nodding. "Huh!" (Short for "Uh-huh!"; it is how he says "Yes!").
"Ok. Let's go use the potty and then it is bedtime."

Unzip sleep sack up. Unzip pajamas down. Remove diaper. Sit him down on potty seat. (He is 19 months old. He doesn't actually use the potty yet, though we've been starting to encourage it, and sometimes he asks to use it.)

"Candles!" It's kind of dark the bathroom, but that's not what he's talking about. His new favorite books are the ones with pictures of cakes: the middle (party) scene of "Hippos Go Berserk," the Saturday page of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," the last page of "The Jolly Barnyard."

That's that book he wanted, where Farmer Brown is seated at his table and his wife is carrying a lovely birthday cake for him. Ben tries to pluck Farmer Brown's cake off the page ("Plate!") and touches the cake ("Candles! Cake! Mmmmm!"). He points out the coffee pot (well, he points out the ash bucket next to the woodstove and calls it a coffee pot).

Anyway. So I went to get the book and zoom, Ben was up on his feet and racing away, buck naked except for his footie PJs and his sleep sack, both waving from his neck like fleece capes, making a beeline for Chris and Max.

We tried again.

Somehow he got away from me again, the pants-free avenger in search of Daddy.

I suddenly recalled that Max used to use the same excuse around this age, swearing he had to use the potty (or maybe he was a little older and actually using the potty at the time, making his excuse more believable). With Ben, it's pure hope that makes me fall for this excuse. He obviously realizes, despite our thus-far low-key approach to potty usage (for him, I mean), that it would please us if he used it, and so promising to use it can stall bedtime.

Good one, Ben. Time to diaper you up and get you back to bed.

Hating the Sunday Long Run

2012-01-22T22:33:00.003-05:00

I used to love my Sunday long run. I'd look forward to it all week. And I'd run extra, almost every time. My running partner was running 10? I'd run 12. She wanted to run 11.5? I'd run 13 or 14. I wasn't trying to outdo her; I just loved to run, loved to keep running, and when we got back to the corner where we met up for the run, I'd just keep on running with her instead of turning to run my own last mile home.

Something's changed. It's not just because I was underslept in bad shoes and t0tally ran out of steam last week. No, this week I was in my usual condition but thought, soon after getting out of bed, "Why am I doing this?" The house was quiet. I wanted to lounge around, drinking coffee, writing a little, reading stuff online, and then maybe go out to breakfast with my family, or eat oatmeal and get the kids out in the snow.

But not run. I didn't want to run. And when I finally headed out, reluctantly, I didn't feel the groove. I wasn't excited. I wasn't happy to be running. I felt strong, and fast enough, but I also just felt like I didn't want to be doing it.

My usual long-run partner, Sasha, had planned to only run 10 miles today. My other running partner--one of my trail-running pals who's started joining us on our Sunday runs--was running closer to 16. Normally I wouldn't have thought twice about staying in for the longer run, but today I was very happy to say goodbye to him and turn back with Sasha. And when we got to the corner, I didn't think twice about saying goodbye to her and turning home. I wanted to slow to a walk and would have if it weren't so cold out.

The cold isn't the problem. And though the shoes I wore today are my "newest" running shoes (which have about 800 or 900 miles on then, well above the 300-500-mile level suggested for running shoes), and are worn flat and smooth on the bottoms and thus have terrible traction on snow, they weren't the problem, either.

It's not just running. I've been keeping up a pretty consistent yoga practice thus far this month (considering the studio's class schedule and my work schedule), and today thought the only class I could get to would be a 5 p.m. class that was a little above my level. Then C announced a change in his plans, thus freeing me up for a late-morning intermediate class. Perfect.

Except I had no desire to go. What I really wanted to do was wrap up in a blanket on the sofa with tea, cookies, and a book, and do not much more than read and sip. I feel like I need to recover from something, but I am not sure from what. I'm not sick. Ben slept through the night last night. I don't know what's up. I just don't feel like doing the Sunday long run anymore. Early-morning trail runs in snow and ice and dark? Sure, usually. But sunny road runs on a Sunday morning? Or even a Saturday morning?

It makes me uneasy, that they are starting to feel like a chore instead of a challenge, something I used to love that I no longer look forward to. Hopefully this is just a little phase.

Maybe I should skip next week's long run, just to see how that feels. I just hope I don't give it up for good.

Help Flood Victims Kim and Dennis Gouse

2012-01-15T13:29:00.007-05:00

Imagine if all your stuff were destroyed by a flood and your home gutted to a mold-riddled frame with a cracked foundation;

Yep, the fridge was floating.

and you'd been trapped in the home while the floodwaters rose, and

Floodwater flows in the front door.

if, after your home were destroyed four months ago, you'd had to live in a small camper with a faulty heating system (sure, it's been kind of a mild winter thus far, but still: Pennsylvania is not the warmest state), still paying the mortgage on the destroyed house, and

This is not the Gouse's couch;
this is someone else's couch floating through the Gouse's front yard.

you'd had flood insurance on your home, plus mold insurance, plus extra flood insurance to make sure you were covered...and Allstate Insurance was giving you a lot of push-back about how much they were willing to pay out...

Kim Tallon Gouse (with whom I went to high school) and her husband, Dennis, lost their home to the crazy Pennsylvania floods of last fall (you may recall images of many parts of the state, including the entire town of Hershey, being under water).

After the Gouses struggled for months to get help from their insurance company, Allstate, the Gouse's contractor (whom they describe as an "angel") finally contacted the media. Kendra Nichols, a reporter from the local ABC News station, picked up the story.

There's some argument between FEMA and Allstate (and the contractor, too) about whether the house should be condemned and razed or whether it just has cosmetic damage and simply needs some drywall.

[Even if I hadn't worked in construction for five years, I think I'd be able to tell the difference between "condemn and raze" and "cosmetic damage."]

After the initial news story, there was a follow-up story. Allstate responded, and ABC News ran a third story on the Gouse's plight. [Click the links above to see the news stories, the destroyed home, and interviews with Kim and Dennis.]

Things may be looking up for the Gouses (as in, they will hopefully soon learn if they can rebuild their home), but they are for now still living in the trailer. Rebuilding, if it happens, will not happen overnight. They will need furniture for their home, as most of their stuff was destroyed by the flood. Also, think about how much work they must be missing, having to deal with assessors and appraisers and contractors and the insurance company all the time.

If you would like to help, you can send a check to Kim at her employer:

Kim Gouse
Home Depot Store #4138
5101 Jonestown Road
Harrisburg PA,17112

or send a check to the Gouses at:

Jack Gaughen Realtor ERA
5050 Linglestown Road
Harrrisburg,PA 17112

You can also donate via PayPal on the family's website, where you can see more pictures of the flood damage and follow their journey.

Worst Run Ever

2012-01-14T12:00:00.006-05:00

This morning's 10-miler was the worst run I've had in a very, very long time: a wreck of poor planning, unfortunate circumstances, and who knows what else.

It didn't help that Ben awoke at 2:30 and we could not get him back to sleep until 6 a.m.

I had failed to get all my clothes ready the previous night, which meant that my regular road shoes were down in the front stairwell. Rather than risk waking anyone up, I chose instead to wear the very old road shoes I found by the basement stairs.

I was woefully underdressed. It was 29 degrees out but felt like 15. Short sleeves under my running jacket didn't quite cut it.

My shoes were bad. Pretty soon, I was feeling ankle, shin, knee, hip, and back pain--the kind of foot-to-back pain I have only experienced while running in really old running shoes.

I stayed with my running group for 6 miles and then knew I couldn't face another loop around the reservoir, let alone running the long way home. I bid them goodbye, crossed the street, and ground to a walk.

A slow walk. I felt like crap. I wished I could call C to come pick me up, but I had no phone. There was nowhere to call from, and no whose phone I could ask to borrow. It was me on a cold road full of closed businesses.

Of course, when you're underdressed to start with and then you stop running, you feel really cold. After a mile and a half I knew I had to at least jog to stay warm. I was still a few long miles from home.

I jogged. I considered throwing my shoes in a trash can or at least carrying them until my feet got too cold. I don't mind running barefoot, though I haven't run in my VFFs in a while.

I got home, eventually, chilled and slow and feeling like crud.

Lesson learned: If you head out for a long run after only 2.5 hours' sleep, underdressed on a cold day, in running shoes that should have been recycled last year....carry a phone with you. Better yet, try a shorter run, postpone it to the following day, or....or....Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

Turning 40

2012-01-13T20:31:00.003-05:00

Well, after yesterday's semi-dismal post I felt a follow-up was necessary: My birthday has been a great day so far.

It started before dawn, in the dark and drizzly woods, with some of my trail-running friends. The rocks were slick, the roots were slicker, and the puddles were cold and muddy, as puddles are. Now that I am 40, and thus officially in my 40s, as are they, we talked about back pain and gum disease.

I am not kidding. It was like one of those "You're a woman now" talks you have with your mom or health teacher or whoever when you're 12.

I'm the one who forgot to take off her headlamp before we took the picture.

Then what should have been a crazy morning went pretty smoothly, and my chiropractor gave me a quick adjustment. I decided to work instead of going to yoga, and my friend Justine appeared with cupcakes, her newborn and husband in tow. They took me out for Indian food for lunch.

The project I've been gnashing my teeth over suddenly feel neatly into place and I managed to crank out a lot of what's due on Monday.

I arrived home at the end of the day to find a vase of paper handprint flowers (kids) and a platter of paleo brownies (sitter; she follows a paleo diet, which does NOT mean that she can only eat dinosaurs she herself has killed). The brownies are good but a little weird. The flowers are cute.

C managed to get a ride home early (for him) with our neighbor (and father of Max's friend and classmate), who weirdly enough ALSO turned 40 today. What are the chances, right?

Then C ordered takeout from our favorite Szechuan place, and I opened a bottle of very nice wine (very nice; I'd been saving it for some super-special occasion that somehow never came, and tonight was trying to choose between that and some low-budget bottle of shiraz. After some heavy wavering, I went for the good stuff. It is good.).

And now it is time for dinner and a movie.

It wasn't the flashiest birthday, but it was a pretty good day. And tomorrow I will see my father, my mother, my too-long-unseen eldest brother and his family, and my other brother and his family. I'll start with a 10-mile run and then it's family time. I can't wait.

What, like you don't give pony rides to both of your kids just before pajama time?

Book Review: "Why Women Need Fat"

2012-01-12T22:34:00.007-05:00

When I see a title like Why Women Need Fat, I think, "Duh! Isn't that like asking 'Why does Mommy need wine?'"

Also, reading about dietary fat makes me crave it, so I often had to eat ice cream while reading this book. I don't know why that happens. It's probably the same reason that I craved cigarettes during the last trimester of each of my pregnancies and why, while reading a lively Facebook discussion of an encounter with an inappropriate midday drunk, I suddenly want a cold beer. You know?

Or maybe you don't. Anyway, Why Woman Need Fat (by William D. Lassek, M.D., and Steven J.C. Gaulin, Ph.D.), discusses why American women are, on average, so much fatter than they used to be and so much fatter then women on other countries.

In short, it's the omega-6's. And our decrease in omega-3 fats.We tend not to eat as much "real food" as we used to. Our dependence on so much processed food, which is filled with cheap soybean and corn oils, is making us fatter.

Lassek and Gaulin discuss a woman's "ideal" body shape (that preferred by men in various studies). This shape is thin-waisted and full-hipped. Why? The fat a woman stores on her body--specifically, on her hips, butt, and thighs--contains DHA, which a developing fetus (and growing, nursing infant) needs for brain development. Women need fat.

But the American diet has become quite low in omega-3 fats, which are a source of DHA (and EPA), and high in omega-6 fats, which lack DHA and (to sum up) also are not good for you. So American women tend to pack on more fat to achieve the same level of DHA needed to support a growing baby.

We need fat, but we need the right kind of fat. Nonfat processed foods are not the way to go.

Some of the science in this book seems pretty simplistic, such as when the authors say that one-third of the women in this country need C-sections in order to give birth. I didn't like that they did not question whether this was due to an increased medicalization of birth here and whether the Caesarians were actually necessary; they simply accepted that of course they were and used this to prop up part of their argument, namely, that our fat selves are often unable to get babies out on our own.

The authors discuss diet and food in a fairly in-depth way. They also clearly explain one's "set point" for weight, how one's body has a natural weight it tends to be (or would be, if one gave up processed foods and corn-fed meats and basically just ate better).

So, women, butter is better! Eat lots of nuts and grass-fed animals and piles of vegetables and grains and some dairy, and your body will be the way you're supposed to be: healthy.

Please join me at the BlogHer Book Club discussions to talk about this book!

Note: This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are my own.

On the Edge of 17

2012-01-12T20:37:00.008-05:00

Tomorrow's my 40th birthday.

You're probably thinking, "What will she do this time? How can she possibly top the crazed bacchanalia of her 30th-birthday rock-star party? How is this fun-loving, no-holds-barred, who-needs-boundaries socialite* going to celebrate this momentous occasion?"

Glad you asked.

The original, long-ago plan was to take a week-long mountaineering course at the American Alpine Institute. [Hahahaha. That was before husband and kids.]

The new plan was to take a day off, start with a trail run, get a pedicure, and go shopping so that when I meet my family for dinner on Saturday I'm not wearing the exact same top I have worn for every "nice" occasion for the past two years.

The reality:

A pre-dawn trail run with my wonderful running group.

Home in time for a quick shower, some hurried oatmeal, and then dropping Max off at preschool and driving C to work while on a conference call (he'll drive, I'll conference).

Next up: Chiropractic appointment (to tweak my back and neck back into place after last week's 90-minute Astanga class, which I'm clearly not quite ready for), after which I will try to get to yoga, which will be the same 90-minute Astanga class (I'm older, see, but not necessarily smarter...).

Pinworm medicine. That's right. Nothing says "Happy Birthday!" like pinworm medicine. Ben has pinworms, so we all need to be treated.

Work. I will spend the afternoon trying to move through an extra project I mistakenly took on, thinking I'd have more time for it. I do not. I have to work all weekend, due to what one might call a gross oversight in terms of biting off more than one can possibly chew if one has small children who need things like dinner and cannot walk themselves to and from daycare/preschool and such (come on, kids, Route 16 isn't that busy...and if you're early enough, the crossing guard can help you!).

Speaking of which, right around their dinner time I will knock off work to relieve the sitter, and then drive both hungry kids to pick up C at the bus station, and then somehow get everyone fed...

Saturday we're celebrating with my parents and brothers and their families. We were going to go away skiing but there is no f*cking snow. Well, maybe it snowed last night, actually, but too late, sucker! We'll take a weekend away skiing another time (back country/cross country, so a generalized snowfall is pretty crucial). Or maybe I'll just go with a couple of close friends.

In a few weeks, when one friend is back from some traveling, I'll go out to dinner with friends and then go on a ski trip with a few of them.

So, it won't be the fanciest, most exciting, most thrilling birthday ever, but it will be...fine. And, unlike after my 30th birthday, I will be in excellent condition to get up early and run 10 miles the next morning! Which is what I will do. Because I will be 40, and I will still rock. Just in a very different way than I used to.

* I'm no longer a fun-loving socialite. I'm a quiet recluse, in fact, who lives her life in a one-mile radius except for the Internet and for yoga class, which is 2.5 miles away.

Making Dinner

2012-01-11T11:39:00.006-05:00

Max cut up ALL the broccoli, all by himself...
after first rushing to put on his toque and apron, of course.
He's a professional.

Not to be left out, Ben made soup out of dry cat food and the cat's water bowl,
stirred carefully with his xylophone mallets.*

While I made mini banana-chocolate chip muffings, the boys played with big bowls of cornstarch and water for both boys to play in.
Max quickly lost interest and wanted to help me stir things,
but Ben enjoyed dumping the stuff.
Photo taken after I'd cleaned most of it up.

* Bonus points if you can find the xylophone mallets my gingerbread house post. Apparently these are crucial cooking implements, at least for Ben.

If I Had $250

2012-01-06T15:25:00.006-05:00

If I had a sudden spare $250 (because I do! I just received, in the mail, two gift cards worth a total of $250 thanks to a giveaway over at Mommy Niri--thank you, Mommy Niri!), I could:

buy fancy new boots
buy funky new jewelry
buy a 20-class pass to the yoga studio
go out on a great date with my husband
take a bunch of friends out to dinner

But it's hard for me to spend money on myself. I'm kind of a miser. I always talk myself out of getting new things, saying "I can live without it," and lo! a year later I've proved that I can indeed live without it.

Thus I dress like a bum and my bike shoes are totally shot.

But after that initial "I can splurge!" feeling, I get practical (have to, I'm a Capricorn). I could do several other things with that $250:

give it to the Greater Boston Food Bank or to Rosie's Place
put it towards buying Max a better bed (he doesn't love his toddler bed, so maybe it's time to move him to a regular twin bed)
pay for groceries (I know, I know: LAME)

Then I think even further out. $250 would pay for most of a home inspection once we buy a house (yes, a good home inspector in these parts charges $300-$400). I could put it in the kids' college funds. I could use it to pay for all the various classes I want the kids to attend but never seem to get around to signing them up for: swimming (too cold in the winter), gymnastics (for Max), kiddie music (for Ben). We can totally afford these, but it's the time factor (oh, the time factor).

I could use it for some upcoming dental work I'll need (STOP, frugal self, you're killing me!).

We can afford all of the above. We're lucky. But I have a very hard time spending money on myself, even if I own one nice sweater at this point and no stylish boots.

I think the best solution, to both treat myself and share the joy, is to invite a bunch of friends out to dinner, on me. Then I am sharing the wealth, but I still benefit greatly, by getting to see my friends. (I tend to be lazy about organizing outings.) And maybe I could buy myself some new earrings first, as a kind of early birthday present to myself.

We'll see what happens. I'm pretty sure I won't be using the money to buy myself a bunch of new stuff, though. That's just not my style.

Another Conversation with Max

2012-01-03T14:28:00.002-05:00

[Setting and Backstory: It is morning. Max is cranky. He's sitting in the living room. Around 3 a.m., he'd come into his parents' bedroom and climbed into their bed. This happens every night, sometime between 3 and 6 a.m.]

Max: Why was I sleeping on the floor?

Father: When?

Max [cranky]: No, why??? Why was I sleeping on the floor?

Father: When? You weren't. You were in our bed.

Max [in a fury]: No, why???? Why was I sleeping on the floor??

Father and Mother together: When?

Mother [as Max begins to howl in misunderstood rage]: We need to know when you were sleeping on the floor to know why you were sleeping on the floor.

Max: WHYYYYYYYYY????? WHY was I sleeping on the floor last night!!!????!?

Father: You weren't. You were in our bed, and before that you were in--[cut off by furious "NOOOO! WHY???"]

Mother [guessing quickly]: Do you mean why were you on the floor in your room, before you came into our bed? Did you wake up on the floor, before you came into our room?

[Max nods as parents slump with relief.]

Mother: Maybe you slid off of your bed. So you woke up on the floor last night?

Max: Yeah.

Father: Oh. Well, I guess that's why.

"Mouse die!"

2012-01-01T20:18:00.008-05:00

"Die!" Ben says, an inquisitive look on his face, backs of his hands on his hips, his upper body swaying as he speaks. "Die!"

Ben, a year and a half old, is standing in front of C, who's sitting on the toilet. "Mouse die!"

"Yes, Ben," C says, "the mouse died. It's time to let go of the mouse, Ben. Hey," he adds, turning to me (yeah, we just don't bother closing the bathroom door anymore)," maybe we should get him a mouse. Or a hamster!"

A few weeks before Christmas, I decided it was time to move the horrid old love seat somewhere else so we make space for the Christmas tree. The love seat is uncomfortable. It's ugly. It's been here since I moved in. We mostly use it as a sort of bookshelf, stacking crap on it. I hate it.

I tell the kids to stand aside and push the love seat away from the wall.

Is that mouse poop all over the floor?? Our cat, Karl, sleeps on the love seat. The kids jump on it. They kick the soccer ball at it. How the hell could a mouse live in there--especially long enough to generate so much poop?

The carpet under the love seat does indeed seem to be covered in mouse poop. Gross. I mention it aloud, which invites all sorts of questions. Yes, there was a mouse. No, I don't think it is in there any more.

"Did it die?" Max asks, crouching down to see the poop. He is curious about death lately, about what it means to die. He doesn't really understand it but for a time liked to apply the word as often as he could.

"Die!" says Ben, standing up from his own crouch, latching on to this neat new word. "Die?"

"No, the mouse didn't die," I say. "It probably left because of Karl. Maybe there wasn't even a mouse. Hey, step back from there."

I try to clean it up with our dustbuster but it isn't charged enough, and I don't want to leave Curious Preschooler and Curious Toddler alone to poke at the mouse poop while I fetch the big vacuum, so I do what anyone would do--I push the love seat back into place. What you can't see can't hurt you, right?

"Mouse die?" says Ben, hands on hips.

I text C: "When you get home, Ben will probably say something like 'Daddy, come! See, Daddy! Mouse! Mouse, die!'"

When C gets home from work that night, Ben greets him at the door. "Daddy, come! Come, Daddy! See!" He leads C over to the love seat and gets on the floor to look under it. "Mouse! Mouse die!"

Did I call it or what?

That night, C and I try to move the love seat out to the street, but it will not fit through the door. In any position. In any way, shape, or form. Even if we take the door off the hinges. I have no idea how the thing got in here.

We put it back in place again---at least vacuuming up the mouse poop first--and wait for the weekend.

Saturday morning, I get my flat bar and hammer out and systematically dismantle the thing. C feeds Ben breakfast; Max sits on the sofa watching me.

That's loud, Mommy!

A Sawzall would be more fun, of course, but I don't own one. It would be messier, anyway. I gleefully carry the pieces out to the trash cans.

I have killed the love seat. "Die!"

The love seat is gone, but the new word is not. "Die!" Ben says. He always assumes the same position: backs of his hands on his hips, almost on his lower back, insistent tone, inquisitive expression. "Mouse die!" and he points to where the love seat was, for a while, until the Christmas tree is up. Then out of the blue--I don't know what triggers it--he'll look up into my face and say "Die! Mouse? Mouse die!"

It's like living with a goth baby, sort of. And then his big brother, who's always asking about death.

I don't understand why Ben always assumes the exact same position when he says it, but he does. At least he didn't do it at Christmas dinner, earnestly looking up into my mother's face while saying, "Die!" That would have raised some eyebrows, I'm sure.

[Note: If my damn smartphone were working properly, I'd have posted some photos about the Demise of the Dreadful Love Seat. Alas, the phone refuses to release any pictures to me in any way, shape, or form. Let me just say it was blue plaid, rough material, saggy cushions.

UPDATE: Obviously: got some pics.

And of course there is this sweet face, saying, "Die!"]

Conversations with Max

2011-12-29T21:06:00.005-05:00

Preschooler: Mom, which of my friends doesn't like chicken?

Mother: What?

Preschooler: Which of my friends doesn't like chicken, I said!

Mother [repeating question to be sure she has heard correctly]: Which of your friends doesn't like chicken?

Preschooler: What?

Mother [repeating slowly]: Which of your friends doesn't like chicken?

Preschooler: I don't know. Why are you asking?

40 Years, Not 40 Friends

2011-12-27T21:28:00.006-05:00

Nothing's harder for a recluse than being asked for a list of her friends and their contact info.

And nothing is more depressing than someone asking for this a few weeks before said recluse turns 40.

I don't mind turning 40. I'm kind of looking forward to it, in fact. I'm done with my 30s and ready to move on to the next adventure, much as I was totally over my 20s and ready to turn 30 a decade ago (31, however, was a tough birthday. 31 means you are actually in your 30s, which at the time seemed most of the way toward old). I'm ready to turn 40. I'm happy about it.

Plus, I'll be one of the youngest in my age group at races, giving me some kind of edge, right? Right?

So that's not what has me down. No, it's that my brother asked me for a list of names of friends (and their contact info) to plan a party for me.

I thought for a minute.

"Um....friends. Sure. Hang on. Let me think for a sec."

About eight or ten years ago, my close friends started moving to far-flung places: Arizona, California, Omaha, Chicago. Vermont. Pennsylvania. Delaware. Maine. We kept in touch, but of course we all start finding new friends closer to home.

And then I got married, which changed a lot of relationships for me. If I say I'm a recluse, well, I look like a blazing socialite next to my hermit of a husband.

And then we had babies.

I no longer want to go out. I'm tired. I'm hopelessly unfashionable. I own one decent "casual night out" top. I'm overwhelmed by work and laundry and my children's needs. I have a marriage to maintain (I know that makes it sound as sexy as cleaning gutters, but marriage with two young children is not always spanky fun, you know?).

When I do finally get out the door and to my destination, I'm a little dazed. I haven't been out in months, remember. And just being away from the mayhem of bedtime is so stunning that I can do little more than stare and smile blandly and sip a drink and ask the same question three times, interrupting the answer each time with something intriguing and thrilling like, "Wow, I can't believe I am not home trying to get Max to pee before bed!"

I could still have friends, even if I don't go out, but I don't. I have about three "real-life" friends, one of whom just had a baby (as in, less than a week ago) and another with whom I've fallen out of touch (my fault).

Otherwise, there's my running group, my blog-world people (both bloggers and commenters), and my Facebook friends. My running group is probably the closest thing I have to real live friends, really. I spend more time with them than with anyone else. While we don't get too personal, we know each other pretty well.

But wouldn't it be weird to see them in the evening, in regular clothes? And to talk about something other than our pace?

So, much as I'd love to proffer up a list of friends, dear brother, I don't think I have enough friends to generate an actual list. This isn't any sort of pity party; I don't think I'm lonely. I guess I just live behind a screen so much that I don't really talk to many people any more.

Oh, that does sound pathetic, doesn't it.

My 40th birthday will be a low-key affair with a few essential ingredients: a long morning trail run on the actual day of my birthday, a weekend away with just C for some backcountry skiing, some small family celebration, and maybe a dinner out with my two remaining actual friends.

And it will be grand, any and all of it.

The Gingerbread House

2011-12-27T10:41:00.007-05:00

Aren't holiday memories made from rolling out dough and hearing Mommy mutter, "Dammit, I think I burned the roof," and smelling the hot gingerbread as it cools and hearing Mommy say, "No! I said don't touch it! The walls will collapse! Let the mortar-icing dry and then you can touch it! No! Don't touch the gable end! GO PLAY WITH YOUR BROTHER!" and seeing the finished house, a blank slate ready to decorate--of which I failed to take any photos, it seems?

I made our gingerbread house from scratch again this year, partly because I think store-bought stuff like this cheapens the holiday fun and also because it is really pretty easy. I'd already made plenty of gingerbread dough. I just had to cut out some house parts from a manila folder, put them together to make sure the parts all fit, roll the dough out into sheets, trace and cut the house parts, and bake. Of course I forgot to cut out doors and windows and I forgot to make a chimney, but whatever. There's always next year!

Also, while the overhang on the side walls was fine, I forgot to create a soffit on the gable ends (I know, right? Can you even believe it?). No matter.

Last year decorating our house was a full family event (minus Ben, who was probably sleeping), with C busy making train tracks out of Twizzlers and pretzels. We build a little wood shed last year, too, next to the house. We had a landscaped pathway. Max and C and I stayed up working on it one evening, and it was really something to see when we were done with it.

This year, the holiday flurry overcame us somehow. I did do a lot of baking with the kids (post and photos to follow, as I'm pretty sure we should win an award for sheer breakage--of dishes). As for the gingerbread house, there was never a good evening for all of us to work on it, and somehow the weekend before Christmas was a cookie-decorating weekend instead, or something.

So Max and Ben worked on the house one evening.

Ben, of course, wanted to eat all the gumdrops and pretzels. He kept puling them off the roof as fast as Max could put them on.

I tried to pretend that the raw egg whites in the royal icing couldn't possibly contain salmonella. All the sugar would have killed it, right?

I helped a little bit. Ben kind of sort of helped. But mostly, this was Max's project. I assisted him with making doors and windows. The rest was all him, though.

I especially love the pretzel placement on the roof.

We never did decorate one wall, but no matter. It is a beautiful house.

On Christmas morning, Max kept asking why Santa had not eaten it. I explained that Santa ate the cookies we'd left him, but Max was still confused. Now he wants to know when we can eat it. I wonder if he remembers that last year I ate most of the gingerbread house during a January blizzard when I felt like we were low on supplies. (We survived the storm, by golly, but our little gingerbread house did not.)

At Least He Can Talk Now

2011-12-17T05:44:00.007-05:00

Preschooler is snuggled up to my back: "Mommy, I don't like it this way." He wants me to face him.

Toddler: "Booby." It's not like he hasn't had access all night. He came to bed with me at 11, woke me at 1:30, 3, 4-something. It is now 5 a.m. and the preschooler has just arrived, stripping out of his pajamas before climbing in between me and C.

As he unzips his footy pajamas, I warn him to be quiet. The toddler has just fallen asleep on my arm. I carry him to the boys' room (why do we bother?) and gently place him in his crib. Is it the drop in temperature? The lack of the sound of others breathing? Whatever the case, he's having none of it.

C tries to get him back to sleep. I decide it will be faster and easier to stop the screaming by just bringing Ben back into our bed.

When we bought our new mattress last week, maybe we should have gotten a king-sized one.

We snuggle, the four of us, Ben and then me and then Max and then C, one big warm family squish.

Behind me, Max murmers, "Mommy, but what are we doing today?" I shush him and tell him it is time to sleep.

At my chest, Ben practices new words. "Booby, OK! OK! K! O! K!"

I shush him.

He pats my shoulder. "Knee!"
"No, honey, that's my shoulder. It kind of feels like a knee. Shhhhh. It's sleepytime."

He rubs his ear. "Hurts."

"Your ear hurts?" I ask. He nods vigorously. "Huh!" It's short for "Uh-huh!".

He nurses for a minute. We're all quiet for a minute.

Behind me, Max murmers, "Mama, did we take the garbage out? When did we take the garbage out?"

I shush him.

"Sit down!" Ben says loudly. "Sit down! OK! Sit down! SIT DOWN!" It's something he tells me when he wants to nurse. He knows it means "Sit on your bum in your chair" and "Do not stand in the bathtub." He has also begun to apply it to me, a directive for me to sit down so he can nurse. If a chair is nearby, he points to it and says, "Sit!" but if there's no chair, or if we're lying in bed, he'll say, "Sit down!" which means, "I want to nurse NOW so stop talking, sit down somewhere, and lift your shirt."

"Mommy! Sit down!" he repeats.

He giggles.
I giggle.

"Ben!" says C. "Shhhh! It's not time for talking!"

It's almost 5:30. I might as well get up with him so Max gets some sleep. And maybe I can get some work done with the little chatterer on my lap.

Not bloody likely.

Keeping Your Family Healthy in Cold and Flu Season

2011-12-16T21:31:00.009-05:00

I recently had the good fortune to attend a lunchtime presentation by Dr. Meg Meeker, a Michigan pediatrician and bestselling author, about keeping our families healthy during cold and flu season.*

Considering my own family has been juggling what seems like one cold after another (interspersed with sinus infections and other delights) for the past four months, I thought this could be some useful information.

And hey, it was at Finale. Their cocoa is good. (Yes, I might be that easy.)

topped with house-made marshmallows, of course

Dr. Meg Meeker reminded us ("us" being a whole passel of local parent bloggers) that we know our children best. We know when he or she isn't feeling well. Sometimes a cold (which is viral) passes, leaving a bacterial infection behind. If a child has thick, yellow snot, it's a bacterial infection.

If you think your child has the flu, says Dr. Meg, head to the doctor for Tamiflu or other such medications. Don't wait it out.

"Dr. Meg" (as she likes to be called)

Dr. Meg talked about fevers and taking temperatures. Vicks has just come out with a behind-the-ear thermometer: less invasive than rectal, more accurate than armpit or forehead, and easier to use on very young children than oral. What more could you ask for? Plus, the thermometer stores the last 8 readings and lights up with a color (green, yellow, red) depending on the reading it gets, so you know if you can go back to sleep or should try to get the temperature down pronto.

Dr. Meg addressed some common myths about fevers, such as "Feed a fever, starve a cold." When a child (or anyone) has a fever, it is important to keep the person hydrated, with adequate amounts of sodium and potassium. Pedialyte is ideal; Gatorade is too strong for children under the age of 2.

She also talked about febrile seizures, which are caused not by the height of the fever itself but by a rapid rise in temperature. One-third of children who have febrile seizures will have another one at some point. A high temperature by itself doesn't cause brain damage, as we often believe, but a febrile seizure that lasts for more than 20 minutes can cause brain damage. (In any case, I hear they are scary.)

To lower your child's temperature, Dr. Meg suggests the following:

Don't use an alcohol rub (even if your mother or grandmother swears by it!). The alcohol can be absorbed through the skin. This is not good for children.

Put your child in a tepid bath (not a cold bath).

Use ibuprofen and/or Tylenol (it's OK to alternate them. She recommends rectal Tylenol (the idea being that it is less disruptive to a sleeping child than oral medicine would be, but frankly I find the idea of inserting a suppository in a sleeping person kind of invasive).

Take your child's temperature half an hour after you give the tepid bath, use medication, etc. to see if it has gone down. Just as important, note how your child is acting after his or her temperature has gone down. Listless? Perky?

Dr. Meg explained that one reason for the increase in colds and flu (and RSV) during the winter months could be due to low humidity. A study in the journal Environmental Health found that influenza virus cannot live very long if the humidity is between 40%-60%...which, therefore, is probably what you should keep your home humidity level at if you want to provide a less inviting environment for these viruses. Use a humidity monitor if you want to know for sure.

As for humidifiers and vaporizers, cool-mist vaporizers will cool a room. A warm-mist vaporizer is not necessarily germier. Use a vaporizer when your child has croup. I'm still not entirely sure of the difference between humidifiers and vaporizers and when to use either, but that's because I was distracted by the dessert table and wondering if it would be rude to get up and help myself.

Distracting, right?
You can barely see the chocolate cake in the far right corner of the table,
but it was about 16 layers and pretty damn excellent.

To decrease transmission of viruses such as influenza and RSV, try the following:

be clean but not crazy

wipe toys with antibacterial cleaners

wash your hand and teach your children wash theirs

sneeze into your elbow (something I've always found gross; I'd rather sneeze into a tissue, frankly, or into my hands and then I'd go wash them. Sometimes when I sneeze, well, sometimes I sneeze something out. Do I want that on my sleeve? But I guess this is a great tip for kids, who will otherwise happily sneeze wherever they are, be it in your face or into the silverware drawer.)

change to new toothbrushes monthly

have your child use paper cups if he or she is sick

use saline drops in your child's nose nose if he or she is getting sick

if your child has a cold or is congested, elevate the head of his or her bed

Most important of all, says Dr. Meg, never parent out of fear. Trust your gut. And don't leave the doctor's office until you get an answer.

some of the various Vicks humidifiers and vaporizers

* The lunch was hosted by Vicks. I am not being compensated for this post, even though the cocoa was awesome. And if you click the link, that's me in the bottom picture, looking tremendously happy as I take my own temperature. That thermometer is super-easy to use, even if you're all jacked on chocolate!

"That Mechanic is a Thief!"

2011-12-14T17:58:00.006-05:00

Our sitter relays this charming tale from today:

As they walked past a mechanic's garage--garage door open and mechanic standing near the door, near the sidewalk--Max said loudly, "That mechanic is a thief!"

The sitter wasn't sure she'd heard correctly but shushed Max just the same.

After they passed the building, she crouched down in front of the stroller. "What did you say?" she asked him.

"That mechanic is a thief," Max repeated.

"Where did you hear that?" she asked, suppressing laughter.

"From my daddy," he said.

(He was, in fact, thinking of a different mechanic, the guys at a certain Sunoco station; the mechanic he'd passed with a sitter is one we kind of like.)

Why Running is Good for My Whole Family

2011-12-14T10:08:00.007-05:00

Example 1: Pokey family at the breakfast table.

Me without a morning run: "ARghhh! Why can't you people just eat your breakfast? I CAN'T TAKE IT!!! It is time to EAT!!"

Me after a morning run: "Hi, guys. You want more maple syrup with that?"

Example 2: Stack of towels falls off of badly-loaded shelf in messy closet.

Me without a morning run: "$%(&#Me without a morning run: "$%(&#$&#%^Q#(@^&!!!!! I cannot live like this! $%#$&#@??@&#%!!!! amp;#%^Q#(@^&!!!!! I cannot live like this! $%#Me without a morning run: "$%(&#amp;#%^Q#(@^&!!!!! I cannot live like this! $%#Me without a morning run: "$%(&#$&#%^Q#(@^&!!!!! I cannot live like this! $%#$&#@??@&#%!!!! amp;#%^Q#(@^&!!!!! I cannot live like this! $%#amp;#%^Q#(@^&!!!!! I cannot live like this! $%#Me without a morning run: "$%(&#$&#%^Q#(@^&!!!!! I cannot live like this! $%#$&#@??@&#%!!!! amp;#@??@&#%!!!! amp;#@??@&#%!!!! Do you hear me??"

Me after a morning run: "Gosh heavens!* [restacks towels] Honey, I'm going to jump into the shower now! You OK with the kids?"

* I am not making this up. This phrase actually came out of my mouth. I was more shocked than you, I think.

Example 3: Max is refusing to get dressed and I'm running late.

Me without a morning run: "Get your clothes on now! You wanted these pants! What is wrong with these pants? HUSBAND GET IN HERE AND DEAL WITH THIS!! MAX, GET DRESSED NOW!!! COME ON!"

Me after a morning run: "Hey, Max, let's race, you and I. First one to get dressed wins. OK? Go! Oh, no, you're winning! Where are my socks? Oh, gosh, look, you're winning!"

Example 4: We are now very late and neither child wants to put shoes on and Ben runs away calling "Nooooooooo" when I try to get his jacket on him.

Me without a morning run: "Arghhhhhhh! Dammit! Shoes on NOW!!! We are LATE!!! Mommy is LATE!!!! Why can't you just put your shoes on? Honey, YOU do this!! I cannot take it anymore!"

Me after a morning run: "Hey, hon, can you get Ben's jacket on him while I go get the stroller out of the basement? Max, which shoes are you wearing today?"

Wow, I must really suck to live with when I don't go running.

Giveaways Work, and Kids and Shoes

2011-12-11T15:48:00.005-05:00

This week in It's not like a cat-land...

I won $250 in a giveaway over on Mommy Niri. ("See, honey? And you thought I was just wasting time online.") These giveaways really do work!

I went to a fun lunch with several other Boston Parent Bloggers at Finale (yes, of dessert fame) for a presentation on keeping our families healthy during cold and flu season (full post to come). It's great to meet the other bloggers in person; usually they're just names on my screen.

Clever Girls Collective just accepted me (I find this kind of exciting, as they rejected me once before. I hate rejection.).

In other news, I just started work, making our household kind of insane as we (try desperately to) adjust to the new schedule. On the bright side, I work at home and the hours are slightly flexible, but on the flip side, I work at home and the hours are slightly flexible.

That is, sure, no one gets fired for being late to work if we can't get the kids out the door on time (what is it with 3.5-year-olds and their inability to put on shoes in a timely fashion??).

However, because I don't have to be in the office by a time dictated by anyone other than me, I'm the only one who feels a real sense of urgency in the morning (because, see, if I only have X number of kid-free hours available to work, then I'd rather not waste that time trying to talk someone into putting on his shoes or wrestling Ben into his jacket).

I'm working hard to get everyone moving in the morning. C's been pretty helpful with breakfast and shoes (man, he is the king of getting the kids' shoes on). I'm also working hard to not turn into a yelling bitch in the mornings (note to husband: I am much more likely to be calm and happy if I've been able to go for a trail run before attempting the Great Migration to Daycare and Preschool each morning).

So, that's why it's been a little quiet on this site lately. It's not just purely NaBloPoMo recovery. I've just been feeling swamped.

The End of the Month

2011-11-30T22:57:00.004-05:00

I'll miss NaBloPoMo. It's been a good, solid month of blogging. I talked about soup much more than I ever expected to. I didn't do justice to Ben's language explosion. I portrayed my family as ingrates and myself as a drunken holiday reveler with a bad case of "need to run races."

I never even mentioned our family cat, also known as MY cat when she's being annoying (which is much of the time).

And now I start work. Two "works," in fact--two different projects. I'm not sure how this will jive with my plan to train for a half marathon in February, but we'll manage.

I still need to find childcare so I can actually do the job without sitting the kids in front of videos and hoping Ben doesn't start mashing on the keyboard, leading Max to protest, leading Ben to mash more and possibly close and open the laptop, leading Max to push him away, causing Ben to squall, causing me to come in yelling...

Yes, a babysitter sounds like a much better option.

This month has brought not only employment for me but also new readers and commenters (THANK YOU!), nifty blogging opportunities, groovy new business cards (THANK YOU, PATTY!!), and a sense of calm. Having to write daily has been great, even if I'm blathering about s'mores.

Thanks for hanging with me through this NaBloPoMo. Don't expect daily posts through December, but I'll be nearby.

And so will you. Right?

Don't Let the Soup Hit You on the...

2011-11-29T19:41:00.008-05:00

I made soup again. This time I followed a recipe from Whole Foods for Winter Squash and Apple Soup.

We have a few large squash--butternut, acorn--left from our produce CSA, and I had the recipe just sitting on the counter from when I grabbed it off the bulletin board at the store the other day, so it seemed like a good idea.

Also, I have this smug little plan of making lots of soup this winter: economical, healthful, easy to make in advance, yummy. Unfortunately, I seem to have a family of soup-haters. Ben loves it but gets most of it on himself and the floor. Max won't touch it, no matter what it is. C seems to think that soup cannot be an actual meal. But this winter I will convert them all! I will!

For this particular soup, you peel and chop winter squash, apples, and an onion, halve some garlic cloves, toss it all with powdered ginger, and roast it for nearly an hour. Not being a fan of fat-free cooking--because I think fat is necessary for both health and of course for flavor--I also tossed everything with olive oil before putting it into the oven.

I flipped everything on the pans. I rotated the pans. I checked the time. I sniffed the air. I thawed some of my homemade chicken stock.

And then I threw it all into a blender and voila! Dinner! The recipe also called for nutritional yeast but we're out, or else I couldn't find it, so I added a dash of salt and hoped for the best.

It's pretty good, the soup. It's sweeter than I'd like, thanks to the apples, but the garlic and ginger add a nice complexity to it, and once I topped the soup with bits of bacon from our happy-farm-animal meat CSA, well, wow. Nice balance, if I say so myself.

An hour earlier Max had said he wanted pizza for dinner, or was it Ben? "Ummmm. Pizza," I believe C quoted Ben as saying. That just means he's hungry, though.

C and Max were heavily involved in some kind of plant-repotting project (do not get me started) around dinnertime, so I put soup in front of me and Ben.

"Applesaw!" he shouted in excitement. "Saw! Applesaw!" He apparently thought this was applesauce. I thought he'd like the sweetness.

He turned his head away, repeatedly.

I gave up trying to get him to eat it. Too garlicky?

I ate my bowlful and then asked C, not entirely seriously, if I should go get a pizza. "Yes!" he said, not looking up from his plant project on the porch.

"So you don't even want to try the soup?" I said, suddenly grumpy.

"What? You asked if you should get pizza. Do it if you want to!" He was really into his ficus just then.

I knew Max wouldn't eat the soup, and I didn't feel entirely right letting them eat yogurt and crackers for dinner. I went and got a pizza.

Then I sat and watched them as they ate it. C, at least, had a big bowlful or two of the soup. I didn't want any more soup--it's a little too sweet for my taste, with the apples in it--but I didn't want to eat pizza after I'd spent all that time making the soup.

After the kids went to bed, though, and I was still hungry...a slice of Hawaiian hit the spot. As did a second slice. I may need to eat the remaining slice (black olive) and call it a night.

I guess pizza does have its place. Who eats large bowlfuls of squash soup, anyway? There's no protein in it. Is it supposed to be a side dish?

Back into Training Mode

2011-11-28T21:15:00.004-05:00

It's time to get my ass back into shape.

Since the marathon just over a month ago (crikey, closer to month-and-a-half), I've slacked off a bit. I had every intention of carrying on as usual, of course, but I took a week off, got some bodywork done (myofascial release: it felt like painful training unto itself), got lulled into a non-training life of one or two weekday trail runs and the Sunday long run (nowadays 9-11 miles), and suddenly I'm looking ahead to a February half-marathon and thinking:

Jesus. I'd better get a'training.

I did do one super-fun bootcamp session, with the intention of doing them more often, but I can't fit them in more than once a week and Thanksgiving hit (Thursday being bootcamp day). I'm doing it again this week.

It's time to get back on the horse. Or back to the track, more like it. I fear that since I didn't continue (finish) the myofascial release work, I have some new tensions/muscle problems that I'm feeling, but hopefully they won't stick around (denial is such a beautiful place).

Tomorrow, I'm going to start tracking my workouts again. Rather, I'm going to start paying attention to a training plan, which I don't always stick to (let's face it, a whooping pre-dawn trail run with friends is much more fun than plodding along for, say, four miles on the road, right?).

Runner's World has this nifty SmartCoach thing whereby you plug in your stats (age, gender, recent race time, upcoming race date and distance) and it comes up with a training plan for you, including paces for your runs, plus estimated race finish time.

Neat.

So here I go again. Of course I'm also about to start work this very week, and the work will be thick from now through early February, so I'm not exactly sure where the time to run will come from, but maybe Mary Poppins or Alice from the Brady Bunch will read this post and decide to come live with us and tend the children and manage the household and all of that, for the next two months.

It doesn't hurt to dream, right?

Turkey Soup and the Buncha' Ingrates

2011-11-27T11:08:00.004-05:00

'Tis the day after the day after Thanksgiving, and you've been sent home with the turkey frame ("carcass," if you will). What do you do? Turkey soup!

Except I started the stock too late in the day, because I'm a firm believer in the four-hour simmer plus an overnight cooling in order to skim the fat--so I had to thaw some of the chicken stock I make and keep in the freezer, to which I added carrots, onions, celery, turkey, the leftover Brussels sprout hash*, wild rice, a little of my mom's excellent homemade stuffing, and a few spoonfuls of gravy. I also threw in some frozen corn to add a slightly sweet note.

It was a rich, flavorful soup, one of my best yet.

Max, upon having the bowl placed in front of him, declared that he didn't like it and wanted something else. I said he could have cheesy toast if he tasted the soup. He tasted it (and I think liked it but wouldn't admit it), so I made him cheesy toast. Cut into triangles, please.

Ben, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the soup. He loved it. Unfortunately C mentioned ice cream during dinner, which got Max talking about the little ice cream sandwiches we have in our freezer, which got Ben yelling "Sandwich! Sandwich!" (it sounds more like "Sammich! Sammich!"), which made C think that Ben wanted a sandwich, so he got up and made Ben a big gloppy PBJ.

Ben ate some of that but wanted more soup, which I happily gave him.

C, ever the culinary philistine, had--without tasting the soup--sprinkled his with fennel, turmeric, nutmeg, basil, and black pepper. This combination, of course, made it taste nasty, so he got up and made himself toast with peanut butter.

What is wrong with these people?

It gets worse--as if having your family sit around eating bread and peanut butter or bread and cheese while their delicious bowls of homemade soup sit untouched on the table isn't bad enough.

No, C had to start dipping his peanut butter toast into his soup. And when Ben clamored to see some of the spice containers, C mistook his gesture and dipped Ben's gloppy peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich into the turkey soup and fed it to Ben.

Still have an appetite? How about once Max starts asking how food gets broken up in your stomach and C tells him about stomach acid? And Max asks if stomach acid is "yucky" and C says that it is--"Remember the time that you--" at which point I kindly asked if this discussion could please wait until after dinner.

It made me want to never cook for them ever again. And possibly not even eat with them for a few days.

* Brussels sprouts shredded and sauteed in butter and olive oil, seasoned with a squirt of lemon and a little salt. By the time I made it on Thursday, my mother was out of onions, garlic, shallots, and bacon. But it was still really good.

[NaBloPoMo Note: Lest you think I took yesterday off of NaBloPoMo, I didn't. I meant to write this post yesterday, but I fell asleep at 8 p.m. when I put Max to bed. Oops! Plus I just wrote three posts for today, so there. I've more than made up for missing yesterday.]

The Language Police Will Issue a Ticket

2011-11-27T10:56:00.002-05:00

I.

"Mommy, what does g-i-g-i-g-o spell?" Max asks me.

"Gigigo, but it's not really a word," I say.

"What about a-e-r-e-r-e?" he asks.

"Air-ree-ree?" I guess. "That's not really a word, either."

"Or shitter?" His expression hasn't changed. Where has he heard shitter?!?

II.
Ben's having a bit of a language explosion lately. Last week we were headed to a party, the whole family. "Party! Party!" Ben chanted. He loves to repeat words.

We weren't moving fast enough for him. He grabbed the diaper bag, dragged it over to C, and stood at his feet, looking up. "Excuse me!" he said.

III.
Ben can finally say "Max." Until a few days ago, it was "Ma!" [rhymes with "baaaa," like the sound a sheep makes]. Now it is "Max!"

This still doesn't stop his older brother from occasionally trying to squish him.

IV.
After convincing Max to let me use the child's hairbrush on Ben and to go look for the child's comb to use on himself, Max went off to look in the drawer in his nightstand. It's a repository for short ribbon, curtain tie-backs, lip balm, and this mailable photo album I keep meaning to fill and send to C's mom. I heard him rummaging.

He emerged from his room and leaned on the doorway.

"Mom," he said, "my nightstand drawer is full of crap."

Guilty S'mores

2011-11-27T10:41:00.003-05:00

The problem with my Catholic upbringing is that I feel guilty and wrong--almost shameful, really--when my husband takes the kids to the playground on a Sunday morning and I'm left home alone and all I want to do is make myself some microwave s'mores.

I never make microwave s'mores, for starters. Proper s'mores are made at a campfire, the marshmallow properly toasted, the too-sweet Hershey's bar waiting patiently on a graham cracker perched on a log or rock or whatever flat surface you can find, your eyes watering a little from the campfire smoke, a bit of sand or dirt or dead leaves stuck to the mouth of your beer bottle from when you accidentally kicked it over in the firelight.

Also, I hate s'mores. They are way too sweet. Painfully sweet. There must be a way to make better s'mores--bittersweet chocolate instead of milk or even semisweet, homemade marshmallows, whole-grain crackers instead of sweet graham crackers--s'mores for a more sophisticated palate, if you will.

Also, I have a lot to do--dishes, laundry, let the cat onto the porch so she stops meowing, grocery list/shopping, line up childcare because I start work this week. So sitting around eating s'mores* feels downright anti-Weberian. I guess it's that more than the Catholic upbringing: my mysterious Protestant ethic that seems to be fading as I go over the Niagara Falls that is having young children.

* Let alone blogging about it. Next thing you know I'll make up a little song about it, choreograph a dance routine, and post it to YouTube....can you say "procrastination"?

Holiday Liver

2011-11-25T22:13:00.006-05:00

Today, I was immensely grateful that my toddler wanted to take an early nap exactly when I needed to take an early nap, thanks to what we might call "something very much like a walloping hangover."

I was the one suffering, not him. He's still getting used to drinking cow's milk, for chrissake.

Sometimes (usually) when my family gets together we can put away ridiculous quantities of wine. It's usually really good wine, thanks to my brother(s) and their oenophilia, but no matter how high-end the wine, if you drink too much of it, you might not feel optimal the following day (call it "holiday liver," if you will).

Last night, as we sometimes do by the time the second or third cork is pulled, we got into some big discussions, everything from cupping to my mother's family history, from book publishing to bullying experts, from wedding etiquette to a bunch more family history.

This morning wasn't too horrible. We went to the beach, where Ben bee-lined straight for the water. As it was about 45 degrees out, I only let him wade, not swim. My feet hurt from the cold, but he loved it.

before the shoes and socks came off and the pants got rolled up

Once his pants were completely soaked* I handed him off to someone (someone in the family, obviously, not some passing dog-walker) and convinced my nephew to go running into the brisk surf with me. He thought it was pretty thrilling.

I felt great. I did cartwheels and handstands to amuse Ben. I ran up and down the beach with my nephew. I jumped up and down in the water.

Then we went off to a playground, where my condition, if you will, deteriorated. All I could think was that I needed to be sleeping.

Thank god for toddlers and their naps. Ben offered the perfect excuse for me. As soon as we got home I whisked him upstairs and promptly fell asleep next to him. When he woke up more than two hours later, I felt fine again.

C doesn't believe me that it was the wine's fault. He thinks that if I can run a marathon, and if I can run as fast as I can run these days, then I should be able to handle that amount of wine. He's practically a teetotaller and he felt fine after two or three glasses last night. That I don't understand, but I will say that my running ability has nothing to do with my drinking ability. My liver may be better trained than his, but it's not superhuman.

Tonight I enjoyed a salad of baby greens picked at our CSA farm last weekend, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil, with feta and pepitas, and a mug or two of Sleepytime Vanilla. I'm feeling all clean and nice and healthy again.

Thank god.

* Kidding. Jeez, lighten up. They weren't completely soaked, just kinda wet. And we'd brought a towel and a change of clothes for him, and he was fine.

Gratitude

2011-11-24T22:49:00.003-05:00

(because what the hell else are you supposed to write about on Thanksgiving?)

I am grateful for:

The fact that Max's eye is fine and the metal plane hit him just below the lash line, leaving a quarter-inch gash. I never again want to seem my child screaming and bleeding from the eye, but I am so, so grateful that his eye reflexes worked properly to protect his eyeball and vision.

Also grateful that he's not the one who threw the plane and nearly blinded a cousin.

My wonderful children, supportive and sexy husband, and our health. Wow, hearing some of the stories I've heard lately on Facebook, I am so grateful for our health.

My oldest brother. He has been kind of gone for most of my life, but he's loyal as hell. I miss him.

Our general good fortune. We eat well. We live comfortably. I'm a terrible housewife and often-grouchy mom, but my husband doesn't begrudge me running time or free time or the crappy dinners I sometimes serve or money. I don't spend much on myself but I don't have to ask if I want to. He actually encourages me to go buy some clothes and such.

My parents, who are interesting, lively people who take care of their health. My mother is hitting 70 and building her photography business; my father is a local character and socialite and arts supporter. I wish they lived on either side of us.

My in-laws, who are interesting also. They are different from my family, but that is good. They are open-minded, kind, non-judgmental people.

Why the hell does Ben keep waking up every two hours?? Was it the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes? I didn't want him to have any but somehow he learned the word "marshmallow" and kept begging for them. He's awake again.

On that note, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Turkey Trot

2011-11-23T12:12:00.004-05:00

It's that time of year again, or almost is, and if you haven't already found your local turkey trot, you'd best get on it.

Our local one, the Gobble Gobble Gobble, is so popular (and the shirts so nice) that they ran out of shirts more than a week ago, which is a major bummer for those who are working on the whole rainbow of colors. I have orange, brown, and gray. The maroon ones are really nice, but I missed it that year.

It's a Fairly Serious Race. It's chip-timed, strollers are not permitted, and the fastest runners are quite fast (in the 15-minute range, pretty speedy for a 5K). Afterwards, everyone goes to the pub for a free Guinness.

The year I hosted Thanksgiving--when my mother was my only guest, and I served a roasted chicken instead of a turkey, and we had side dishes that encompassed 17 different vegetables, thanks to the CSA I was a member of--she ran (well, walked) the Gobble Gobble Gobble with me and my friend Ann, who was also walking the race. Mom and Ann walked, I ran, and we all met up at the finish line and headed to the pub. As she sipped her beer, my mother observed, "Wow. I don't usually drink at 10:30 in the morning!" I gently reminded her that we usually didn't, either.

It's a great race, the Gobble, and not just because you get to take the edge off before you dive into a big family gathering.

I try to find a turkey trot of some sort near wherever I'm going to eat Thanksgiving dinner. In 2009, that meant the Turkey Trot in Chatham, on Cape Cod. This is not at all a Fairly Serious Race. The entry fee is basically a couple of bucks and a bag of food for the local food pantry. The race course is not fancily mapped out and blocked off the night before with signs and police. The official race map is actually this:

There is not actually a giant, hand-drawn turkey overseeing the race.

Not only are strollers allowed in this race, but you're likely to see roller skates, bicycles, and skateboards, too. When I crossed the finish line, panting, I asked some old guy in the flannel shirt (whom I presumed was a race official) what my time was, as there was no time screen.

"I don't know. It's whatever your watch says," he told me. Aha. It's a self-timed race.

A much younger Max, me, C, and my father waiting to run the 2009 Turkey Trot. Sadly, he won't be joining us this year (no, he's not dead; he just won't be on the Cape for Thanksgiving).

Such a laid-back, almost-unofficial event used to freak me out. My official time wouldn't get posted online! How would I know how I ranked in the pack? Why wasted time on such an unserious running event?

Why, why, why. This year I look forward to the Chatham Turkey Trot. Max and Ben can join us in the stroller. Without the pressure of official chip time that will go up online within hours of the race, I can trot along with C and my sister-in-law, not worrying about hurrying them along or wondering if it's rude to leave them behind. I can just enjoy it as it is: a nice, mellow family run before a big family meal.

And no, there's no free Guinness after this race, but there's pie for sale. And happy people. And that's good enough.

Max and my father, known to Max (and Ben) as "Afi," the Icelandic word for "grandfather."

How about you? Do you have a favorite turkey trot or other non-food family tradition for Thanksgiving?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Tuesday

2011-11-22T19:36:00.007-05:00

You know when you get up around dawn for the second day in a row because the little one's up and starting to whimper,

and your sopping wet preschooler appears by the side of your bed at the same time, wailing that he's peed, and he strips down and before you can protest he climbs into bed beside you (naked and sticky and damp with pee) and you manage to get him tucked in next to your husband and watch his eyes close and face relax before you get up to get the baby, who's now shouting "Booby!" and has thrown everything out of his crib...

and an hour and a half later you wake your husband because it's your day to help at the preschool and you have to shower...

and when you try to wake the preschooler a little later he says, "Mama, I want to sleep for one more minute" and rolls away from you, because he is really tired...

and everything becomes a screaming, crying, flailing tantrum once he's up--he wanted to get the raisins out of the cabinet himself, but he was too late out of bed to do so, and suddenly he's knocked the raisin container from your husband's hand in a fury so that there are raisins all over the kitchen floor...

and you have one eye on the clock because you can't be late on your parent-helper day...

and you agree to let him wear yesterday's dirty shirt from the hamper because it is one less fight and it's the only shirt he will wear with his favorite pants, and he refuses to wear any other pants today...

and he's super-slow at breakfast even though you point out that he has another two minutes to finish up...

and then he completely flips his lid about his lunchbox, or is it his jacket? Why is he screaming and crying on the floor again dear god I do not understand--or no, I think it is something about his lunchbox--Honey do you know what he's upset about now? Forget it, I'm going to get the stroller out and bring the snacks down, we're late, I'm going to be late, can you get his jacket on him please?--

returning upstairs to find C rearranging the lunchbox, something about the lunchbox, Pretzels need to be in the outside pocket--What?? That's never been an issue--

and you carry the shrieking child down, one of his shoes in your pocket, his jacket unzipped, because we have to go now we're already late--

and when his sobbing subsides he says something about his backpack. OH! It's not in the car and you can't find it upstairs and you tell him too bad, maybe it is at school, but we can't look for it now, we're already 20 minutes late...

and then you're at the preschool for five hours with eleven small children, "managing conflicts," encouraging inclusion, painting hands, hanging wet art, cooling down the disagreement at the bean table, passing the apple slices...

and then you convince Max it's time to go home even though he wants to play outside on the lawn after school, because you have an expensive babysitter watching Ben...

...who comes down with a fever of 102 an hour after we get home, which is why he wants to spend the afternoon nursing, but with sharp unsatisfied teeth, and Max keeps playing a little too rough with him...

but at one point they are both sitting reading books, Max on the sofa and Ben at the little table, both engrossed, so marvelous...

and then it is time to make dinner and Ben keeps whining to be picked up and Max keeps trying to eat raisins and you have to make phone calls and it is mayhem...

and then you put both kids to bed early, which they dearly need, and your husband arrives home, and you cut him off as he tries to tell you about something, pointing out that it is now 7:30 p.m. and you've been on extremely active duty for 14 hours straight and you just want to sit at your computer with a glass of wine and not have anyone talk to you or talk at you or climb on you or tug on your breasts or ask you for anything...

and you still need to find a cat-sitter, do all the laundry before you pack for Thanksgiving, and respond to a potential client that yes, you are available to take on some freelance work?

Bits and Bites

2011-11-21T20:29:00.004-05:00

[Our home internet connection is screwy this week, so I dashed out at bedtime to buy preschool snacks (I'm on duty there tomorrow) and to grab some wifi. This post will be short bits.]

1. Graciousness. I have a sort-of friend, or good acquaintance, someone I think is really cool but never seem to hang out with. I saw her twice recently. The first time, I'd just gotten my new, beautiful business cards, which one of my sisters-in-law very kindly took the time to design for me (THANK YOU, PATTY!!!). I was so proud of them and excited to share them, but I don't have any upcoming networking events.

I went to her house for a playdate that was not going too well, but I shared with her the story of my last blog-networking event, in which someone called me "lame" for my having to write my contact info on a scrap of paper instead of having proper business cards like every other blogger there. Friend-quaintance was excited for me, about the cards, and happily accepted one (the first I'd handed out) even though she already has all my contact info and knows my blog site.

So a few days later I went to a party at her house, all distracty and stuff because I was chasing both kids on two levels of house, and Ben kept trying to get into the beer cooler and jump on the beds, and Max just wanted to hide behind the potato chip bowl, eating his way through it, and C had left early to go to another party*, and it was too hard to try to keep the children corralled and they needed dinner and I was honestly a little afraid about getting them home and to bed on my own, without C's help**, so we made an early exit from the party.

For some reason I thought that that would be a perfect time to tell my friend-quaintance about my cards and give her one, because I'm kind of a total dork. She graciously said, "That's great!" and put it in her pocket. A split second later I remembered that I'd already given her one two days earlier.

She said, "I know, you gave me one the other day, but I figured you forgot, so I wasn't going to say anything." So kind! Then she asked me if I wanted it back, and I said, "Sure, you don't need two!" so she pulled it out of her pocket and handed it back and I felt totally mortified about the whole awkward scene.

This could be why we rarely get together.

2. Safety. Like many parents do with their kids, we often carry Max and Ben on our shoulders. Ben, not often: he's less stable and harder to grip. Also he grabs our glasses and suddenly lurches forward around our heads, laughing. It's like trying to carry a chimpanzee on crack. But Max: it's much easier to carry him on my shoulders than in my arms for any kind of distance. He's almost 40 pounds, for chrissake (and yes, I try to make him walk, but sometimes we just have to carry him). He's stable, he's strong, he holds on, and we firmly hold his legs.

Recently, someone close to us--someone who's incredibly safety-minded--was carrying his three-year-old on his shoulders. Somehow the child fell off and fractured his skull on the sidewalk. (He's fine...no bleeding of the brain, etc. He is totally fine.) Talk about one hell of a scary accident! I guess when I carry Max on my shoulders, I never expect him to fall. I'm always nervous and extra-grippy when I have Ben up there for short periods of time, but Max, I worry less about. Now I'll think twice about letting him ride on my shoulders. Yikes.

3. Yoga. I didn't accomplish much else this morning in my three-and-a-half free hours while both kids were at school/daycare, but I did get to yoga class. I brought with me all kinds of Type-A energy, all frantic and rushing and unfocused. I dashed in and put down my mat and dashed back out for a quick pee, nearly crashing into the instructor on the way. She was very nice about it and waited to follow me back into the studio.

Then she had us bring our focus into the room, into our bodies, into our breath. It was exactly what I needed. I didn't feel as smooth as usual--more like jangly, over-caffeinated, unrelaxed--but I was able to focus. In savasana (corpse pose, "yoga nap," that thing you do at the end of class when you lie flat on your back and relax and clear your mind) I kept thinking about the freaky dream*** I'd had the previous night but managed to let it go. I wasn't as clear-minded as I wanted to be, but I got clear enough to notice that my mind was very busy, which felt like some kind of achievement.

* We're actually not raging party people. We rarely leave our apartment after 5 p.m., in fact. But we had this potluck, and C had his friend's 40th birthday party to go to but we couldn't get a sitter. Thus I offered to stay home with the kids so he could go.

** It went GREAT. I pried both kids out of the party past their dinnertime, got them home and kept them from melting down while I threw together a dinner from some old salmon patties I found in the back of the freezer, and frozen peas, and mayonnaise and ketchup mixed together (they loved the meal!!), and got them both to bed with absolutely no fuss or tantrums or problems at all. It was weird. And lovely.

*** None of your business. I've been having weird sex dreams lately, if you must know, but this blog ain't the place to describe them.

Gleaning

2011-11-20T21:30:00.013-05:00

The kid's a natural farmer.

My fridge full of carrots and my car full of apples. I spent about one and a half hours washing greens and rinsing roots tonight. We have enough greens to enjoy huge salads and piles of wilted greens all week.

Our CSA farm had "Open Farm" day, whereby all the members could go glean the fields for whatever remained. Max was ready. He had his gardening bag and tools. We'd also remembered to bring a trowel, scissors, and knife, unlike last time, when we attempted to dig carrots from hard ground with our bare hands (and, eventually, a broken handle of a trowel we'd found in the field).

Anyway, enough talking.

Farmer Max has his digging tools in his bag and is ready for action.
Ben just keeps saying, "Tractor!" because there are two John Deeres,
one on each side of us, just outside the frame of the picture.

the carrot patch

Max teaches Ben how to dig them up.

"It's broken!" It takes Max awhile to get the hang of digging straight down instead of across. Ben, meanwhile, seeks a trowel of his own.

Success!

Hey, hey, muddy butt, don't run with scissors!

Ben loved the fennel. He'd still be chewing on his fennel stalk if he could.
Max noted that "It tastes like our toothpaste!" because he's
recently graduated to adult toothpaste,
which in our house happens to be Tom's of Maine fennel-flavored toothpaste.

Careful where you step, Ben!

Sexy husband taking a picture...

...of his wife, who's taking HIS picture.

Hmmm, any purple cabbages left? (Nope.)

Here's a little green one!

"Is this a radish? A turnip?"

Ben enjoying a sweet white turnip. Or radish.
I never did figure out which these are;
we've gotten them all summer, and they've really grown on me.
Good thing, since we still have a ton of them in our fridge.
Best eaten raw, in any case.

All this plus half a bushel of excellent apples (not free) from a neighboring farm.

an apple for the ride home

Baby lettuce, washed. Tatsoi, washed.
Mizuna, pictured during its second rinse.
Arugula and mustard greens, awaiting a wash.

We also got a few huge, ugly beets, more of those white turnip/radish things,
some purple-topped turnips (which no one here eats, so I don't know why we picked more. Maybe we'll roast them.)

11 Reasons Why I Love My Husband

2011-11-19T21:05:00.004-05:00

Get yer crackers out, people. Here comes the cheese.

1. He's sexy. It's hard for me to look at him and not think, "Wow, he's hot." Not just when he's dressed for work or a date, either. I'm talking sweatpants and morning hair. It doesn't matter.

2. He smells good. I mean, really good. Let's just leave it at that. Or not. I am pretty strongly driven by pheromones. Mmmmm.....

3. He makes me laugh. At the most unexpected times. He can defuse a situation with a tiny comment that cracks me up. When I'm cranky and have a black scowly cloud over my head, he can make me giggle.

4. He's forgiving. He doesn't hold grudges. I am half Italian, so (not to stereotype) I'm used to some real grudge-holding. But him? He doesn't do it.

5. He's patient. About 900 times more patient than I am. With me, with our children.

6. He's an excellent father. He's the one who's always willing to play, to read, to fix favorite broken toys I'd rather throw out. To sing and rock or soothe one of the kids to sleep late at night. He lets our children know they are deeply loved, and they adore him.

7. He's easygoing. I can suggest an activity, party, gathering, or excessively busy weekend schedule, and he's willing to go along with it.

8. He puts up with me. He teases me to let me know when I'm being annoying, but he does it in a funny way so that I end up amused instead of hurt.

9. He likes to talk about things. Not incessant, navel-gazing discussions of our existence, which would annoy the hell out of me, but to clear the air. Sometimes it's easier to avoid a subject, but he is unafraid to dive in and sort things out if we have a disagreement.

10. He works hard, without complaining. Last night he was up until 1 a.m., working. Today, after an exhausting morning shepherding our children around the museum with some of their friends, I took a nap as soon as we got home. He, on the other hand, cleaned the entire kitchen. Including scrubbing the stove. And cleaned the dining room, and the back landing. I woke up after my nap and felt pretty damn lame. He gave me a kiss. And kept on scrubbing until the job was done.

11. He is brave and fair. He will not tolerate bullshit, and he will defend his family no matter what. I always know he's on my side, and that is an incredible feeling.

There are many other reasons why I am lucky to be married to this guy, but the above eleven are a good start.

Burpees at Daybreak

2011-11-18T20:34:00.004-05:00

My toes don't hurt.

And, let me see, my fingers are fine. I can wrinkle my nose without pain. And blinking is OK.

But do not make me laugh. Or touch my ribcage. Did you know that if your ab muscles are sore enough, it can even hurt when you simply smile? Adductors, quads lats, obliques, traps, biceps, triceps, rhomboids, hip flexors....everything hurts today.

I love it.

My neighbor is really into boot camp. She has an instructor come to her house on weekend mornings for her and her friends. She invited me to join them.

So far it hasn't worked out, because I leave home very early on Sunday mornings for my long run, so it's hard to do that on Saturdays, too (not hard for me, but C's not a morning person and doesn't revel in the blessing (cough, cough) that is getting up with two children under the age of 4 who want to jump on the bed (--> fall off the bed), jump on Daddy (ditto), nurse (just the younger one), play trains (the older one), wreck the train set (younger), get mad about the wrecked train set (older one), make oatmeal (C), watch videos (older), not be allowed to watch videos (younger), desperately wish he could have just a little more sleep (C)....

You can see that my getting up and out early to run a few mornings a week is quite enough for C without my doing it both weekend days.

I used to be a lot more fit. Once I started staying home full time with Max, almost three years ago, I started going to the gym, since I couldn't mountain bike, climb, or hike, and it was hard to get out to run. I dropped Max off at the marvelous kid's playroom (basically, gym childcare) and went to kickboxing classes and spinning classes and lifted weights and did full-body conditioning classes and swam laps. I was scrawny and buff. I was fit. I was strong, maybe even stronger than I'd been when I was climbing and mountain biking and camping all the time.

But lately I've only been running. I quit the gym after Ben was born because I could never figure out when to go, what with two different nap schedules. Everyone would be crying or would have cried by the time we finally got to the gym, and I'd have missed half the class I was hoping to get to. I gave up trying and gave up paying for it.

I miss feeling well-rounded, though. So when this boot-camp-less-than-half-a-block-down-the-street opportunity arose, I wanted it.

The neighbor suggested she could lead me through the circuits on a weekday morning. With some trepidation, I agreed. I'd only met her in person once, but she looks rock-solid. Like, seriously rock-solid. And she was in work clothes at the time, not workout clothes.

We met at dawn on Thursday, 5:45 a.m. (agreeing to meet even if it were raining), and she led me through the warm-up. Then we really got started. I recognized most of the exercises thanks to my gym classes, but man I haven't done them for a while.

We did pushups. All kinds of pushups. Spiderman. Cross-mountain-climbers. Regular ones. Some kind of plank situation with one foot off the ground. My feet skidded muddy holes into her yard. We did abdominal work. Plus burpees, sumo squats, lots of other stuff I have blanked out. I groaned a lot. I had to give up and do some of the pushups on my knees, to my shame. All of this was interspersed with sprints up and down the street.

It was great. We really hit it off (which, if you're going to meet someone in the dark, in the mud, to voluntary make yourself hurt both in the moment and for two days after, is good, because if you didn't like the person you were in the situation with, well, I can't imagine it would be very pleasant). She's good-humored (and super-fit, did I mention that? But nice about the fact that I was whimpering).

That was Thursday morning. Now it is Friday evening and it hurts to walk. Taking a deep breath hurts. Getting up from where I was sitting on the floor was a real challenge which took some planning and some pain.

It feels marvelous, waking up all these muscles that have lain dormant. I can't wait to do this again, on a regular basis.

Curb Alert

2011-11-17T13:58:00.006-05:00

Some readers were confused by yesterday's table post. "Wait," came the question. "Why did you bother to bring the table back instead of leaving it in front of our house?" (I'm not naming any names, mind you, about who's asking such questions.)

Back when I lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, you could get rid of anything just by putting it on the sidewalk in front of your building. Sometimes it would be gone before you'd gone back upstairs to your apartment.

You could furnish an entire apartment just with the stuff others left on the sidewalk: tables, chair, lamps, books, tea kettles...you name it, it is free for the taking on the streets of Central Square. It's an unspoken rule that you don't put out junk, just decent stuff. If something doesn't work (say, a toaster), you might put a sign on it saying, "Lever doesn't stay down" or some such, so no one gets stuck with a broken toaster. Anything left on the sidewalk got picked up by the city on garbage day.

If you don't live in one of those groovy neighborhoods where the casual, organic streetside reuse/recycle/giveaway is the norm, you can use the official site of Freecycle. Frankly, I think Freecycle is kind of a hassle, though it has its place.

Craigslist is another way to get rid of stuff, and you can just post "Curb Alert!" and announce you've left something in front of your house. Curb alerts can be annoying if you go out of your way to drive by, only to find the thing already gone.

Anyway. Where we live now, people don't do the passive zen streetside leave-useful-stuff-out thing. Well, they try it, but our neighborhood is not full of university students and artists. It's more like old Italians who grew up on this street, or young families. Not people who tend to be seen grubbing through the sidewalk detritus left by a neighbor.

The people across the street, a few weeks ago, put out a few chairs and a table. Lucky for them, someone claimed the table and some of the chairs. But one of the chairs, seen orphaned in the photo above, has been out there since. Alone, on the sidewalk. Unwanted.

See, our city doesn't pick that stuff up anymore. If it doesn't fit into your groovy new city-issued trash bin, they don't take it. I'm a fan of the new trash system, but it's harder for people to get rid of stuff. And I, for one, didn't want our new-to-us-but-so-unwanted table lingering in front of our house for weeks, toppling over in the wind or onto a curious preschooler. Nor did I want to have to post it to Freecycle or Craigslist.

Thus, I stealthily returned it, which will teach that person that you don't do curb alerts through Freecycle or else this sort of thing can happen.

Ode to My Tables

2011-11-16T22:07:00.002-05:00

I did a Freecycle faux pas today: I returned something I'd picked up anonymously.

See, I have a table problem. I love tables. I cannot say no if someone's offering a table. It's terribly useful, after all: a dining table, a desk, a kitchen counter in one of the many cabinetless, counterless kitchens in this area (or maybe I just rent bad apartments?).

In our kitchen we have a baking table from the Brillig Works Cafe and Bakery in Boulder (I spent far too much time there during my short-lived student days at the University of Colorado, enjoying the Brillig's day-old, half-price muffins, which included these amazing multigrain chocolate-riddled enormous wonders; I also lived on the super-cheap garlic breadsticks at the student cafe, plus my friend Angie and I gleaned our lunches in the fall, wandering town in search of apple trees that had dropped fruit on the ground. I was very poor at the time, among other things).

This baking table, besides being from my beloved Brillig, is a huge butcher-block surface, with a drawer in which I store my cookie cutters, candy thermometer, measuring cups and spoons, pastry cutter, mixer parts, and rolling pins.

[I should mention here that I wasn't the one who'd procured it from the bakery and carried it East; that job was done by the guy I'd dated in Boulder, who went on to date someone who worked at the Brillig, and he's the one who brought the table top--sans legs--to Maine (where we both lived some years later, because we'd decided to date again), and he'd fitted the table with legs made from birch saplings he'd cut and stripped and dried. Those are now up in our attic, as they got a little wobbly over time, and I now have very ugly but conventional table legs on them from a round kitchen table of C's that I made him get rid of when I moved in, citing ugliness and a most un-useful shape.]

The Brillig table was my kitchen counter in Maine, and in my previous apartment in Boston, and it now resides in our present kitchen, because as I mentioned I rent crappy apartments with no counter space.

I also have this wonderful old-but-lovely folding table that's better quality and more durable than any I know of. While in Maine (see above), our Danish friends were returning to Denmark and getting rid of everything. When Anders offered it to me, I couldn't say no. It had been their desk, and it seemed small and portable (it's not; it is heavy as hell). I painted the top pea green and used it as a desk.

My early American drop-leaf table (missing its drawer and one leaf) also came from Maine (what is it with me and Maine and tables?), from a junk/antique store (sometimes up there it's kind of hard to tell). I may have gotten played with that purchase, being new to town and such, but it is a beautiful thing, a top made from wide, wide boards, the drop leaf one ridiculously wide board. Also ridiculously cupped, making it not-quite-an-ideal work surface,but that table has also served as my desk. It's very pleasing in its oldness.

Our current dining table is big and nice, a family hand-me-down, but it lacks soul. Plus it often lacks a leg, as one leg got stripped out where the bolts attach. I bought bigger lag bolts, but they are failing, too. The table bothers me. So I was pretty excited when someone posted a free dining table on Freecycle. Best yet, they posted it as "FOC"--free on curb--instead of making someone arrange a time to pick it up. This is a big Freecycle no-no; you normally have to contact the person to arrange a pickup, and meanwhile the person posts "PPU" (pending pick-up) to the list so that everyone knows the item's been claimed.

I had to have that table. The description was good--sturdy, worn veneer, comes with a leaf, good for a family with kids, nice. I took the boys, after Ben's nap, and rushed over as darkness fell. In the twilight, by headlights, the table looked fine. Heavy as hell, but fine. Somehow I fit it into the car.

This morning, I saw it in daylight. Pressboard (I'd guessed that from the weight), with a very worn veneer. Ugly legs. We have no need for such an unworthy table.

I considered leaning it against the tree and posting to Freecycle but thought of one better: I returned it. I went to the house midday, betting correctly that no one would be around, and I quickly unloaded table, leaf, and legs, putting them back where I'd found them out on the sidewalk, hoping no one would come out shouting.

No one did.

Moral of the story: Life's too short to collect crappy tables. Make every one count.

Raining, Pouring, The Usual

2011-11-15T22:25:00.002-05:00

So I recently posted about my utter, terminal joblessness. I was convinced I'd never work again and that employment was dead to me and etc. etc. And then I gave up trying and bam, a former client contacted me with a project.

As did an acquaintance.

As did another former client.

And someone else said, "Send me your resume; I might have something."

It looks like I'm starting work next week. I may take on two of the projects, which would mean I need full time (as in full time) childcare for January. This gives me a week (?) to find a sitter, or something like that. My good college sitter will be gone for her college's winter break (all of January). The good-but-expensive sitter will be available, but I'm not sure for how long.

So. That's my life. I have just a wee bit of time to get my affairs in order before we're all living out of laundry baskets and eating hot dogs due to lack of time to cook. That's a shame. I love cooking. I don't love cooking when two small children are screaming and fighting with late-afternoon starvation, but otherwise I really enjoy it.

But we'll get through it. And I will be in contact with adults, responsible, accountable, and earning money. Huzzah!!

It is Probably Not a Kids' Song, No.

2011-11-14T22:13:00.004-05:00

Just this past weekend—as in, you know, two days ago—I learned that that boppy little song about “all the other kids with their pumped-up kicks” is apparently about a (school?) shooting. See, I've been humming and singing this song for weeks but somehow never listened to the next line: “better run, better run, faster than my bullet.” Whatever. The song is right up there with Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life," the world's perkiest song about addiction, if we're going to discuss "Super-Catchy Tunes about Bad Events."

In the category of shoot-up-your-friends-and-classmates songs, "Pumped Up Kicks" certainly beats "I Don't Like Mondays" (Boomtown Rats) in terms of catchy poppiness, but "I Don't Like Mondays" is a classic at this point (and nicely covered by Tori Amos, to boot, on her most excellent Strange Little Girls album). Also, it's based on a true story. Even Bon Jovi covered the song (with Bob Geldof, no less!!!), so if you have not ever heard the song, well, just do it. (But not the Bon Jovi/Geldof version, ugh.)

While we're on the topic of "Super-Catchy Tunes about Bad Events," we can't leave out that Filter song, "Hey Man, Nice Shot." That one is about the Pennsylvania State Treasurer, Bud Dwyer, committing suicide on live TV. I did not see it when it happened, thanks in part to a minimal-TV childhood (I mean, jesus, can you imagine having the news on and your kids watching when that happened? I sometimes turn off NPR so my kids don't hear something disturbing!).

[I'm not sure if this is important, but I went to high school with Bud Dwyer's kids. They weren't in my grade. The whole event is a big blur, to be honest. I remember learning that their father had died. I didn't know why at the time, or if I did I was too caught up in my own adolescent crap to comprehend it. I didn't see the footage until about two years ago. If I had seen that in high school, I cannot imagine how I'd have been affected. Also, I have no idea why the footage of their father's suicide is available by merely Googling it, but it is...more than one version, in fact. Maybe because he did it in public, at a press conference? Doesn't matter. That is just horrible.]

So anyway. We're driving in the car today, just me and Max, and that "Pumped-Up Kicks" song comes on. He's asking "Why" about something and I ask him to wait until the end of the song because I want to hear it. He listens and then asks me if it is a kids' song. (Remember, I have just learned two days ago that it's not some happy tune about sneakers and playgrounds.)

"Hmmm. Why do you think it is a kids' song?" I asked.

"It sounds like a kids' song," he said.

"It does, doesn't it?" I say, hoping he doesn't listen past the "pumped-up kicks line."

He doesn't. He spends the rest of the ride--indeed, the rest of the day--quietly singing, "All the other kids with their pumped-up kicks..." but fortunately never gets to the bullet part. Which I didn't even know about until someone pointed it out to me, two days ago. So maybe he can just keep singing the first part and we can leave it at that.

I hope.

Review: A Beauty Boost with Mary Kay

2011-11-13T20:19:00.005-05:00

When I was 16, my friend Angela and I got her car stuck in a stranger's muddy front yard. We were lost. Where were we going? Nowhere. Just driving around on the back roads, like teenagers in rural areas do.

New to driving, Angela failed to negotiate her three-point turn properly. I'm not sure why we didn't just turn around in the woman's driveway, like normal people do, but whatever.

We finally stopped laughing hysterically and got out to knock on the door of the house. See, we hoped that not only would the homeowner not mind that we'd gotten our car stuck in his or her yard but that he or she would be willing to help us push the car out.

The woman who opened the door was incredibly nice. She helped us push the car out of the mud. She also told us that she was a Mary Kay cosmetics consultant and would love to give us free makeovers.

Free makeovers! Wheeeee! Angela and I couldn't believe our luck. We took her card and promised to call to set an appointment. We found our way home, somehow, and a week or two later found our way back to her house for our much-anticipated makeovers.

Alas. Neither of us was used to wearing much makeup, and--this being the mid-1980s--the woman had a rather heavy hand. I wasn't used to wearing that much eyeshadow, not to mention heavy blusher. Nor was Angela. We felt less like teen goddesses and more like runaway teen hookers. Needless to say, I didn't get a great impression of Mary Kay.

Some years later I had a coworker who was beautiful, her hair shiny, her clothes well chosen. Her makeup was always lightly but expertly applied. She looked fresh and radiant and lovely, every single day. She was, it turns out, a Mary Kay consultant, and she was an excellent advertisement for their products, just by her appearance. A few weeks before I got married, she offered to help me with makeup for the big day. She selected a few products that matched my skin tone and general coloring, and on my wedding day I did indeed feel like a goddess (obviously, not just because of my new makeup, but it certainly didn't hurt).

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive some Mary Kay products in connection with a BlogHer promotion (note: I am not an official BlogHer reviewer). A box arrived one day. It contained a Mary Kay Compact Mini with three Mineral Eye Colors and one Mineral Cheek Color, plus applicators cleverly stowed in the same compact. The compact is magnetic, so you can swap out the colors if you want to. I also received Mary Kay Lash Love mascara in black, plus--the best part--a creme lipstick in Fuschia.

I don't tend to wear much eye makeup--usually just lip gloss or lipstick, plus maybe mascara if I want to look more awake, slightly more finished, or am going out. If I am really going out, I also add some eye shadow. The eye colors in the compact are perfect for me--Iris, Silver Satin, and Sweet Cream.

The Lash Love mascara is, to be honest, just a little too much love for me. In my minimal-makeup-wearing opinion, it's good for a night out, in which I want dramatic Hollywood eyes with long, thick black lashes, but for daily use I find it a little too much. Plus, it gets a little flaky after a few hours.

The lipstick: Fuschia. It is basically purple. It is fantastic. I didn't think I'd like it until I put it on and said, "Oh hell yes." Even C, whose biggest compliment to me tends toward, "You look fine," saw me with the lipstick on and said, "Wow, that really works for you." The lipstick also stays in place nicely and lasts a long time. It's a much-needed change from my usual (*yawn*) Toasted Almond or Autumn Peach. It's exactly the color I want to be wearing but hadn't yet realized I needed, to be honest.

I don't know why he is licking my shoulder,
except that he is three, and he is in a licking phase.

Light on the eye makeup, loving the fuschia lipstick.
My sidekick just likes the built-in camera on my Mac.

So thank you, Mary Kay, for my fabulous new makeup! And excellent choice for that lipstick color. It makes me feel fun and fabulous even if I'm just heading to preschool drop-off.

Early Version of the Knock-Knock Joke

2011-11-12T13:22:00.004-05:00

Three-year-old: Mom.

Mother: Yes?

Three-year-old: Mom.

Mother: What?

Three-year-old: Mom, do you know?

Mother: Do I know what?

Three-year-old: Do you know, Mom?

Mother: Do I know what?

Three-year-old: Mom, do you know that...?

Mother: Do I know that what, Max?

Three-year-old: Mom, do you know that?

Mother: Max! Do I know that what?

Three-year-old: [laughter]

Don't Stop Believin'; Or, Give Up and The Path Will Show Itself

2011-11-11T20:20:00.004-05:00

I've been struggling with my lack of job. Or unemployment. Or "between projects-ness." Or no work in sight.

Paralyzed by it at times, in fact. I have barely been able to write at all. I've sent a pitch or two but was unable to follow up with the proposed essay. I'd have a flurry of activity, emailing old contacts and applying to unknowns for jobs I saw posted here or there, but there was no response. None. I was starting to feel like I lived behind a one-way mirror, able to see the world around me but unseen by anyone else.

Some people, like my friend Samantha, become incredibly productive and resourceful at such times (times of unemployment, that is), emailing and networking like mad, job-hunting creatively and productively, brushing up on old skills, learning new ones, assessing her skills and interests to consider other ways to make some money (teaching spinning classes, becoming a personal chef, pet care--she's really an inspiration, not to mention a model job-search candidate, in terms of her motivation and creativity).

But I'm not like that. I fall into a crater of inertia. People at the playground ask me how my job search is going. I mumble something about how I have minimal childcare right now and no time to job hunt (mostly true, actually), or how there's nothing out there (mostly true) or how I'm not finding anything (true, true, true).

All I can see before me is housewifing and child-raising and nothing more. I will die and fossilize like this, wiping down the kitchen counter. When asked what I do, it gets harder to say "I'm an editor! I'm a writer!" For how long can you cling to what you did, when you no longer do it? (I know, I know; technically I have only been out of work since the end of July, and I deliberately took August off due to lack of sitters, so really we're talking about two months out of work. See what I mean about inertia? What happens today feels like forever. This is the way it will always be. I'm doomed blah blah blah...

I was, this very week, working on getting hired by a content website (wiseGeek, if you must know), because the other one I relied on for available work and fairly easy money (Demand Studios, if you must know, also known to many as the company behind eHow and LiveStrong). Demand is going through a massive restructuring right now, meaning there's no work available, so I decided to apply to wiseGeek, even though the articles to write are more boring and the pay is kind of crappy. For Demand, I could usually find things I was interested in researching and writing about, and the pay wasn't insulting.

Anyway. I had four days to get my test articles to wiseGeek, 400-word pieces on such topics as "What is a Low-Fat Pumpkin Muffin?" (I am not making this up--how does it take 400 words to explain this? and who doesn't know what a low-fat pumpkin muffin is??) and "What is Bacterial Amylase?" (an interesting topic and one I'd actually enjoy writing)...for $10 each. I couldn't bear it. I put it off as long as possible. I nailed myself to a chair in front of my computer, eschewed our nightly ritual of tea and cookies and 30 Rock, wasted precious child-free morning hours avoiding the work. I had a sitter scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, but she canceled just as I was about to tell her not to bother coming. I took Max and Ben for some adventure instead.

Thursday was the deadline. I'd spent Wednesday fighting with myself and the computer, loathing the task at hand but thinking I had no other options. I arranged for Ben to go to daycare Thursday morning, so I'd have a few hours to knock out the articles.

Thursday morning I got up early. I went for a trail run. I got the kids off to daycare and school and planted myself at Starbucks. Did I write the report on bacterial amylase and low-fat pumpkin muffins and "pick up stitches" [sic]? No, I did not. I wrote a blog post. I contacted all sorts of people I'd been supposed to contact forever but hadn't. I went to yoga. I felt relaxed and happy and incredibly productive for the first time in a long time, because I'd let go of the wiseGeek thing. I'd stopped trying to force myself to do something I'd hate. I know it's a great job for a lot of people, but it wasn't right for me, and I had to stop fighting it. It wasn't what I wanted to do, I wouldn't enjoy it, the pay wasn't quite worth it (do you know what sitters cost around here? Let's just say $17/hr is not uncommon), and it would make me stressed out and unhappy, committing to them.

I let go, with no other prospects in front of me. And this morning my former employer, one of my favorite freelance clients, emailed with a writing project. It's not sexy stuff. It's educational publishing. But it's not writing 400-word articles on "How Do I Choose the Best Basin Trap?" or "What Are the Different Types of Marimba Solos?" for $10 each. And it's for someone I really like working for, in a field I'm comfortable in.

If I were really graceful, and if you wanted to read more, I'd tell you how this all ties in with the structural bodywork I've had done recently, myofascial release so intense that it makes natural childbirth seem comfortable in comparison, that I wish we had a safeword, that the guy's comparison to psychotherapy was kind of right on (a few sessions in, you want to quit because that's when you're getting to the deep stuff and it gets really uncomfortable). But maybe that's another post.

No Blo Po

2011-11-10T22:44:00.002-05:00

Sometimes even though you're "supposed" to write daily, it's OK to let it go if you don't really have much to say and are too tired to get the pictures of your camera. Right?

This post has been brought to you by the "Less is More!" committee of NaBloPoMo. And yes, it's a total cop-out, but I'm tired. I'll post twice tomorrow, OK?

Update to "What the People...Want"

2011-11-09T12:03:00.003-05:00

In my list of suggested topics, I forgot to mention this suggestion from SavageMama: Funny stories from high school. She thinks I might remember things she doesn't. I'm not sure she realizes exactly how much beer I consumed in my twenties, but I'll do my best. All I recall of high school was the excellent biology teacher, the usually horrible religion teachers, and all the times I got sent to the dean's office because of my hair (sometimes it didn't conform to school code, because it looked sort of like this:

except that that photo above is my natural morning hair these days, whereas in high school I spent a lot of time and product getting it to look sort of like that but spikier (so that I looked "cool" instead of "holy crap I cannot leave home like this!"). Also there was some eyeliner involved, just a little. And maybe big earrings (hey, it was the 80s!).

But I might also manage to recall the time we somehow spilled red wax all over her family room rug while we were drunkenly watching Casablanca, and thanks to my daily reading of the "Hints from Heloise" column, I knew exactly what to do.

Tip of the Day: To remove wax from carpeting, place paper grocery bags over the stain and then iron the bags. The heat will melt the wax, and the paper bags will absorb the melted wax. Repeat with fresh bags until done. This will not remove the smell of cigarettes from the room, nor help you dispose of any bottles, but the horrible hard red wax on the carpet will be gone and in its place will be a light-pink stain, which you can let your friend try to explain to her parents the following day.

What the People Claim to Want

2011-11-08T15:13:00.004-05:00

My fine Facebook community responded to a call for topics, quite admirably. It's not that I'm an uncreative lunkhead, but coming up with a post a day without totally losing my readership is, you know, a challenge sometimes. Plus, as my phone camera's not working and I can't find my other camera (a possible victim of Ben and his "put things into the trash can" obsession), I can't get away with a "Wordless Wednesday" post anytime soon.

So. In no particular order, here are some of the topics you're likely to see covered here during NaBloPoMo, also known as "the month of November," which you could also refer to as "the rest of the month."

my dislike of bunnies (though I hate squirrels more, to be honest; I don't actually mind rabbits that much. Since yesterday's post started with a dead rabbit, I might wait a week or two for this.)

my favorite musical instrument ("Least favorite" was suggested, but I prefer my favorite. Obviously. That's why it's my favorite.)

first car I owned (which might end up being "first car I totaled," or "first and only car whose head gasket I changed with my friend Bruce")

why a raven is like a writing desk (Seriously? Who comes up with this shit? Oh, right, Halushki. I have no idea why a raven is like a writing desk, nor do I want to dwell on it, to be honest, because all I can think is "Nevermore!" which sounds like a terminal case of writer's block. Quick, everyone, let's instead think about why a writing desk is like a flowing stream, a rushing brook, from an endless spring. Ahhh. Isn't that image much nicer? You, too, are allowed to visualize that image, Halushki, even though I can't shake the whispers of "Nevermore," dammit. Please don't do that again.)

writing (Maybe. Could be too meta, as the topic-suggester herself, Mama Who, pointed out.)

baking with babies (I prefer to use flour, chocolate, and butter, but I'll try this and let you know how it turns out.)

emergency preparedness (in the wake of all the recent disasters: freak October snowstorms, preceded by floods, hurricanes, etc. I like this topic, in part because as a camper it makes me feel smug. Not that I can currently find any headlamp other than my reading-in-the-tent one and Max's birthday-gift headlamp, but I do know where our camping stoves are and can cook an edible meal on them. Plus I have a French press so I can't relate to whining about how one's coffeepot doesn't work without electricity.)

"pedometer races, toe socks & baby bunnies" (I'm not sure if this is one topic or three, but I might tackle the middle one. I don't know what pedometer races are, and re: bunnies, see first item on list.)

"Do you react differently to movies with kids in [them] now that you're a parent? Do you react differently to kids' movies? What did you most realize they wouldn't be doing by this age? If you could change your kids and make them 5% more X, or make them X 5% more often, what would X be?" (Clearly this person is under the delusion that I actually gave child-rearing some thought before I went about having children. Or that I give it a lot of analytical thought now. Regarding the "X" and percentage stuff, this topic-suggester is a high ranking computer scientist of some sort, as well as the owner of yesterday's dead bunny. In any case, I'm not sure I can answer any of these questions in depth except perhaps the second one.)

Betcha you're kind of hoping I find my spare camera soon, aren't you?

Carrion I Have Known

2011-11-07T20:58:00.006-05:00

Today 's most amusing Facebook status was the following:

So you know that joke "What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? Finding half a worm!". Well, what's worse than finding a dead rabbit on your kitchen floor? HO HO HO!

It seems the poster's dog had dragged some dead thing into the house. This brings to mind so many memories for me (and no, I didn't grow up in The Glass Castle with Jeannette Walls). So today's post will be a short list of the carrion of my childhood and young adulthood (hey, don't blame me; blame NaBloPoMo!).

Pennsylvania, south central part of the state, farm country. August. Green, hot, buzzing with insects, wheat fields and cornfields and meadows and woods. And groundhogs, whose bloated carcasses littered the roadside in late summer, their bellies swollen near to bursting from hot rot. My dog, Floyd, loved them so. Oh, such fun to drag them into the yard and roll around on them. The stench was unbelievable.

Pennsylvania, early spring (or was it late fall?). Floyd again. He'd be so happy, extra-excited, and kind of tarry (he was half lab, kind of strawberry blond-colored) and reeking, and he'd come up to me all thrilled and then run back to something and roll on his back, pushing himself around with his legs, and I'd think he was just playing and I'd wrestle with him before realizing that the tarriness and smell were from...the rotting deer leg he'd pulled home from the woods. Boy, our yard sure was a rich playground in those days!

Maine, years later. I was in my twenties and lived in a shed behind a barn on a farm. (It was kind of a nice shed, except for the heating problem.) Sometimes I'd come home to find my two cats kind of pensive. They'd greet me but not as happily as usual; it was clear they had something on their minds. I'd drop my stuff and change out of my work clothes (carpenter, of course). Then I'd notice their strange behavior. Why were they so focused on the armchair? And then a squeak and a chipmunk would dash across the floor to hide under the bookshelf. I'd prop open the door and try to herd the critter out. Jessie, the sweeter cat, would watch with passive interest. Karl, on the other hand, would position herself at the door. I'd chase the chipmunk toward the door and Karl, ever the goalie, would wait until the last second and then chase it right back in. We could play "Chipmunk Soccer" for hours, it seemed. But the chipmunk always lived and went free in the end.

Maine, same shed. Daily I'd find one or more of those little pink kidney-shaped things on the kitchen mat or by the door. I used to refer to it as "that one gland they won't eat" but really it was probably the stomach of the mouse. My cats ate tons of mice and shrews and moles and voles in Maine. Sometimes they left the ears or tails or half a body, too, but usually just that small pink thing.

This was certainly a fun walk down memory lane. I hope you all have enjoyed reading this post as much as I've enjoyed the reminiscing.

Quickie Product Reviews: Discretion, Snoring, Sipping

2011-11-06T21:34:00.008-05:00

It's time for a few quickie product reviews...none of which I'm being being paid or compensated for in any way, mind you.

1. The new Mighty Small o.b. Reusable Carry Case. I did get this for free, and so can you! [If they are no longer giving them away, well, I apologize for getting your hopes up.] Anyway, it's a small plastic case that holds three or four o.b. tampons. I don't know about you, but I find o.b.'s everywhere--in pockets, backpacks, my computer case, the car...I seem to tuck them away anywhere I can think of so I'll have one when I need one.

Photo makes it look a little bigger than it is.
It really is mighty small.

Well. An o.b. alone doesn't hold up too well at the bottom of a messenger bag for weeks on end, you know? The wrapper eventually gives up after enduring weeks or even months of stress, and then one day you find yourself staring at your last rummaged tampon, picking off flecks of dirt and wondering if using it is really worth the risk.

Wonder no more. With one of these nifty little cases, you can just keep your o.b.'s with you and secure. This case will fit in your pocket. In your hand. In your laptop or gym bag, all the while keeping your tampons safe. Never again will you shake one out of your wallet at the coffee shop while searching for a quarter!

To be honest, the plastic seems just a wee bit flimsy and the top can be just a little touchy when you try to slide it back onto the case, but whatever. It's a tampon carrier. It's not a smartphone cover. How durable do you need it to be?

2. The ZQuiet Antisnoring Device. I hated it the first time C used it because I was used to waking up at 3 a.m. due to one of the kids and then I couldn't go back to sleep because of "Ggghackkkjjjkkkk...Ggghackkkjjjkkkk...Ggghackkkjjjkkkk...Ggghackkkjjjkkkk." The first night he used it, there was dead silence. I couldn't even hear the man breathing, and we were in the same bed. I leaned right over him and poked him, waking him up. Then I spent the next hour curled against his back to feel him breathing, since I couldn't hear him and it freaked me out.

As to whether the device is comfortable or great or anything like that, well, he'd have to be the one to tell you. But for the spouse? It sure is quiet.

3. Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea. It even comes in Extra, with valerian! I love this soothing, relaxing tea.

I lived in Boulder a few years ago (um, OK, almost 20 years ago!) and got to go to the Celestial Seasonings "factory," on the outskirts of town (an area that's since been heavily built up, I think) and got to be a "taster." I drank some kind of berry tea and answered a lot of questions about it.

I wasn't much of a tea drinker at the time, but now I am. I drink a lot of Tension Tamer. I drink Sleepytime nightly, and now I am going to go enjoy another cup before I go to bed.

The Weekend Bitch

2011-11-05T21:16:00.003-04:00

I dread the weekends. They used to be a time for me to drive up to the mountains Friday night or at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning to hike. Or a time for me to mountain biking. Or for me to run errands and see friends. To go climbing. Camping. See concerts. Go to the art store. Make stuff.

In short, to do everything I could do, back when I was free.

[I think the nice way to say that is "before marriage and kids."]

Weekends have been hard for me for a long time. It's not just the break in our weekday routine. I mean, I thrive on schedule and promptitude, and weekends provide none of that anymore. I have never liked unscheduled, freewheeling time with no plans and no desire to leave the house. I'm stuck home enough during the week. When the weekend comes, I want to bust out!

But my husband has been busting out, if you will, all week, and he's happy to relax at home most weekends. The kids, of course, think this is terrific, to have Daddy home to play with.

Me? I just become really bitchy.

We've talked about it and are trying to work on it--some mix of relaxation and planned events, some personal time for me--but we're in the (very) early stages of that.

Today I wanted to go to boot camp at dawn (a few houses down, a woman has the instructor come to her yard), but Ben was up early, nursing on me from the wee hours on, and C had a migraine, and I'm heading out early tomorrow for my Sunday long run, so I decided to stay home and tend Ben and let C get some extra rest.

But Ben. I need to wean that kid. He can nurse for hours, predawn: "Booby!" he shrieks. If I don't give in, he smacks my face. If I hand him to C, he screams and cries (but seriously, not for long). It's been a long couple of weeks of nursing him from 4 or 5 a.m. until we all get up for the day, and I'm more than sick of it.

So I started my day feeling cranky and trapped.

When C got up, he took over for a while. I took my time showering. I mean, lots of time. It's the only place I can be alone and be left alone, as long as Ben doesn't get into the bathroom and stick his head over the edge of the tub, into the spray, beaming up at me. Cute, but can I please have just a few minutes alone, please?

But eventually C needed to shower. Leaving me alone with Our Children.

[Here I should mention we were scheduled for a family photo shoot, after which I'd spend a few hours volunteering at the photo shoot, a fundraiser for Max's preschool. I was volunteering, rather than C, so I could--I kid you not--"have some adult time." That's how much I need a break from family life.]

We eventually got outside (with C's help, with shoes and coats and such). It was colder out than I'd expected. Max wanted hat and mittens. We came up to get them (both kids unwilling to leave the yard). I couldn't find Ben's winter coat. Anywhere. Max waited patiently with his hat and mittens on, and I ended up completely losing my shit.

Completely.

Our house is a mess, and even messier than usual lately, and cluttered, and I just want to get a Dumpster and empty most of our crap into it. Or else each pack a backpack and leave the rest of it all behind.

So to not be able to find his jacket, which just last night was hanging on the back of the door, drove me nuts. And Ben was getting into everything, and Max was asking if he could take all his stuff off and stay inside, and I was sobbing.

I really can't handle weekends.

Tomorrow I get to go for my long run, and I may be the one to take Max to a kid's birthday party in the afternoon. Whoo-hooo! These are my big outings. Our sitter is busy with schoolwork. We cannot get away.

At dinner tonight, Max was being great and grown-up and easy to eat with, but Ben was all over the place--C's lap, the floor, making a huge mess, on my lap, standing on his seat...

It's like living with wild animals, and I can't stand it sometimes. I don't even know where to start with changing our weekends or getting out more. I don't know how to do it or what to do, that's how stuck in a rut I am.

I do know I'd like to go out with C once in a while, just the two of us (or for us to meet up with friends) to eat like adults, and to talk, and to relax. And I want to get out by myself.

But today, I'm just a cranky bitch.

Tomorrow I can run; tomorrow is already looking better.

Babies

2011-11-04T21:11:00.005-04:00

Seems like everyone I know is having them. Or about to have them. Or have just begun gestating them. Or trying to conceive them.

All for the second time.

While I've had tiny flashes of envy and "Hmmm, wouldn't it be nice?" (incredibly tiny flashes, mind you), mostly I want to shout, "No! What the hell are you thinking?!? Don't do it! You think life is hard with a toddler? Do you think a cluster-feeding newborn is going to make your life any easier?"

But I don't shout that. I smile and say supportive things. It's part of the conspiracy of motherhood, after all. Like how when you're pregnant for the first time and everyone tells you this is the most magical time of your life.

(Horseshit. It's amazing and all, but this basic biological condition of pregnancy isn't actually the be-all and end-all of accomplishment.)

Not a single person says, "You're going to go insane with sleep deprivation for the next several years, and you may well hate your life and, at times, your baby, and you will find yourself no longer friends with a lot of people who once mattered a lot to you, simply because of this baby and the fact of parenthood, and you will start spending time with people you formerly would never have connected with except that now you both have offspring of the same age about whose poop and sleep habits you can talk for hours."

No one says that.

I just saw pictures on Facebook of a friend/acquaintance's new baby, just born this very morning, and my first reaction was "Ouch." The last eight minutes of Ben's birth (the pushing phase) was so unbelievably painful that I still feel it when I look at a newborn.

But another friend, who had a baby a few weeks ago, has been posting absolutely adorable pictures of her toddler and newborn interacting. The older child looks proud and protective; the baby, age 4 weeks, is smiling (genuinely smiling) at her big sister.

And that is why, when a friend is going to have or has just had or wants to have a second baby, I smile and support them. They're about to discover incredible beauty, previously unimaginable.

Max and Ben are so dizzily happy together (most of the time, at least) that all of the problems and difficulties I had (while pregnant, and after) don't seem like such a big deal (not that I want to repeat them, mind you). When the four of us are sleeping together (really, we never intended to co-sleep in a queen-size bed with two children, and I'd rather we didn't to be honest, but they do just end up there in the middle of the night) and Ben wakes up and lifts his head and sees his brother, he cries out, "Ma!" with such joy.

And when he finally manages to wake up Max, the two of them giggle so hard I'm afraid one of us (even me or C) will fall off the bed from the sheer force of their happiness.

When we're trying to leave the house, and Max is sitting on the landing putting on his shoes and Ben wanders out there, Max grabs him and holds him so he doesn't fall down the stairs.

Max pats him and say, "Brother," in a sweet little awestruck voice.

Ben always chases Max and wants to do whatever he does, all the time.

When Ben wakes from his nap, crying, and I hold him while trying to stir a pot on the stove before I can nurse him, Max will insist, "Mommy, he wants to nurse" (as if I am unaware that the child I'm holding is crying "Booby" and clawing at my shirt). Max is very protective of his brother.

Always, Ben is happiest to be where his big brother is, and usually, Max is very happy to play with and be with his baby brother. He shares with him (well, mostly); he gave him the very best slice from his orange today; he is concerned for his well-being.

And that is why we have second babies. And why some people have third and fourth babies. Sibling relationships are amazing and beautiful and complicated things (and, yes, OK, sometimes a total pain in the ass). Who else has known you since the very beginning? Who else has brightened your babyhood or childhood in such a way?

Go on. Keep having those babies. Not everyone is stunned and overwhelmed by and lost in motherhood; not everyone gets hit with terrible PPD.

And even if you are, well, your children will have each other, and will adore each other and fight and play and love each other to a degree I, at least, couldn't imagine witnessing.

It's so beautiful.

ChopChop and the Lunchbox Bootcamp

2011-11-03T21:35:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to attend a Lunchbox Bootcamp with some of the Boston Parent Bloggers and Sally Sampson, founder and CEO of ChopChop magazine, a cooking magazine for kids and families.

If you haven't yet heard of ChopChop, check it out! Sampson, a former cookbook writer, has created a very kid-friendly magazine (and website). Not only will it inspire kids to cook, but the recipes look great, even to a locavore semi-food-snob like me. Like the pasta with spicy peanut sauce recipe. I think it rivals Mark Bittman's! Sampson has been in touch with Michelle Obama about fighting childhood obesity and getting kids on board with healthy eating, and the two issues of the magazine that I received show it.

While I am not worried about the fact that we're currently in a lunchtime rut of PBJ (thank god Max's school isn't peanut-free), and Max overall has a pretty good diet (whole oats, minimal processed foods, yogurt, plenty of fruit, and a deep love of broccoli), I thought it would be nice to learn about creative ways to pack a good lunch for him as well as encourage him to get involved with cooking and appreciate food. I have years of lunch-packing ahead of me, and while Max is broad-minded at lunchtime but getting picky at dinner (pasta with "sprinkle cheese," again?), his little brother would happily subsist on chicken, apples, and water. I kid you not.

[Also, to be honest, the event was hosted by a woman who blogs as Mommy Niri, whom I'd met at another recent event (about which I still need to blog!!), and I thought she was pretty cool and nice, so I wanted to get to talk to her again.]

Anyway, back to food and kids. I'd like to think that Max's involvement with our annual CSA (farm share) doesn't hurt. After all, when he was just three months old he very nearly tumbled out of my ring sling into a bin of zucchini at the CSA pickup. I mean, what kid wouldn't appreciate fresh, local produce after that, right? After all, I caught his little "I-can't-yet-hold-my-own-head-up" self just before he hit the zucchini, you know?

Sally Sampson, a vibrant speaker, talked about getting kids invested in their food. She emphasized that kids are much more likely to eat something they've had a hand in making. She included a few anecdotes of children doing photo shoots for her magazine, who professed to hate a particular food (such as tofu) but then found that, after making it, they loved it.

My oldest is not quite three and a half, but I have already noticed this. Max is of course at an age when he likes to do things himself, anyway...but if we let him do something (like scoop everyone's morning oatmeal and put the raisins in it), he's more likely to eat it.

Of course, there are exceptions. On Sunday, C was going to make dinner. Max told him he wanted pizza with chicken and olives (which is what we usually get when we order pizza...plus spinach--also Max's request). C took Max to Whole Foods. They bought all the stuff. Max helped roll the dough flat. C made the sauce and stretched the dough. Max, wearing his chef's apron, sliced the olives and grated the cheese. When he clumped the cheese onto the pizza, we told him the sauce was a fire and he had to put it out with the cheese (the kid's obsessed with firefighting; what could be more investing than this concept??).

When it came out of the oven, a little later than it should have (both in terms of the pizza itself and Max's bedtime), Max got really upset that it didn't look like pizza from the shop down the street and wanted us to call them to order one. (No!) Ben, however, couldn't get enough of it. For a kid who hates olives, he ate a ridiculous number of slices. The pizza was really good.

But I digress.

One of the instructors at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, where the event was held, demonstrated some simple dishes--carrot soup, pasta with vegetables--that a child would probably like and could help make.

Dot Anderson demonstrates how to prep the pasta salad veggies for roasting.

The CSCA instructor was used to cooking with and for kids and had a lot of great tips. Sally Sampson chimed it with more advice about making simple meals and getting kids involved.

I think we sometimes, not always, do well on the "get kids involved" front. Almost all of our vegetables come from a CSA, Parker Farm, to which pickup I drag my children at dinner time every Tuesday, early June through late October, to get our produce. So I can always tell Max that such-and-such came from Farmer Steve, whom he knows and likes, and he might be more likely to try it.

Also--and I love this--Farmer Steve grows some really good carrots, and Max and Ben think they are getting away with something if they get into the fridge and grab some carrots before breakfast, or after dinner, or at any random time. I can't even cook with these carrots; they're so good that it would be a crime not to eat them raw.

And after my mom recently sent Max a chef's toque and apron, I bought him a rolling pin. He loves it. We made cookies one day, a pie the next. The third day is when he helped make the pizza.

This cookie dough isn't actually meant to be rolled and cut out, but we managed.

Pie crust! Max's first!

After the last Boston Parent Bloggers event I attended, I swore I'd get business cards made so I wasn't having to scrawl my info on a scrap of paper. Lame! Not only did a lovely, cool blogger mock me for my handwritten "business card" at the Lunchbox Bootcamp, but my camera failed!! Triple lame.

How lame? Today in the car, Ben (not quite 17 months old) grabbed an issue of ChopChop from my awesome gift bag and was--I kid you not--leafing through it, stopping on pages that particularly fascinated him. I took several great pictures. My stupid not-so-smartphone ate the pictures.

But check out ChopChop. You'll be glad you did.

[Note: I didn't get paid for this review. I did get to attend a great event, meet some cool local bloggers, meet Sally Sampson, see cooking demos at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, enjoy lunch at CSCA, and get a great gift bag.
And I PROMISE I will get business cards made before I attend any other networking event!]

The Causeway at Dawn

2011-11-02T21:29:00.004-04:00

It is pitch dark and one degree above freezing. You are chasing a guy you used to date up a rocky, branch-strewn trail. If it matters, he's dressed like a ninja (except with white socks) and you're wearing a short skirt and blue wool knee socks.*

You are:

A. absolutely batshit crazy.

B. about to get distracted by two dark shapes that turn out to be dogs and then jam your ankle on a rock.**

C. a devoted trail runner.

D. all of the above

Yes, D. And what is up with all the people who walk their dogs in the woods in the dark with no lights? Weirdos. At least we wear headlamps. Except today the only one I could find was my reading-in-the-tent headlamp (because that's all it's good for), which is hard to safely maintain any speed with on a dark, dark trail. At one point I suggested that what we were doing was closer to a clumsy speed-hike than a trail run.

But it was still fun. Thirty-three degrees is nothing. I think my coldest trail run was seven degrees; my running partner today said his was five. It's all about dressing right. And a heavy dose of bravado, of course.

Trail running has made me very happy since 2004. It's running, and it's outside, and it's in the woods, and you have to use some of your general outdoors knowledge even if you've otherwise become a totally suburban parent with a boring life. Sort of. Like the time I split my chin open in a gory mess one winter run, and we were at least half an hour from a car/house/phone, and there was (I know how this sounds, but I am not exaggerating) a really bad snowstorm going on, it was nice to know that at least half the group had Wilderness First Aid training, you know? ****

So. That's how I started my day. In the dark, on a trail, in the cold. And it was beautiful, especially when we cleared the woods and ran out across the causeway, the reservoirs on either side covered with mist, the rising sun making it just light enough to finally turn off our headlamps.*****

* It was a long, long time ago (the dating thing). As for my outfit, I couldn't find my running tights this morning and didn't want to wake anyone up*** looking for them.

** My ankle is fine. A little sore, but fine. Seriously, why don't the dog people use headlamps instead of hunkering down with their dogs on the side of the trail, making strange dark shapes that I know aren't trees but can't quite discern until ouch my ankle!

*** Hah. Ben woke up right after I did, and 15 minutes before I was supposed to be at the trailhead, I woke up C and handed him Ben. But hey! I didn't wake up Max, right?

**** Am not kidding. It wasn't such bad conditions when we started. But by the time we got out to the cars, visibility and road conditions were crap. Fortunately, there's a hospital between my house and the trails, and I had to roll on past it to get home, so there I went for stitches.

***** Local Park Rangers: Of course I didn't mean "causeway"! We'd never go on the causeway! That part of the woods is prohibited; everyone knows that! To keep the water clean and all. I'm just, you know, imagining what that might have been like at dawn today.

NaBloPoMo Hits the Cat

2011-11-01T14:49:00.006-04:00

You may want to call it "No Mo Blo Po! Please!" But I'm going to inflict it on--I mean, attempt it for--you dear readers.

NaBloPoMo is short for "National Blog Posting Month,"which is what some of us who are too fiction-impaired, unambitious, or realistic--or who are very bloggy--do instead of participating in "NaNoWriMo," National Novel-Writing Month, in which people attempt to write a full novel in a mere month.

I don't write fiction. So you're all saved there (gawd, could you imagine if I attempted to combine NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, attempting to write a novel on my blog in a month? The horror!). Instead, I will attempt to post here DAILY throughout November.

After all, the marathon's over, I haven't started boot camp yet, and we're all recovering from bad colds. Why not stay home and blog?

Remember: The more comments the better, if you want to guide the content and help us all avoid days on which I chug out some kind of bad Nicholson Baker imitation in an effort to focus on the mundane. Please. You can even suggest topics if you want! I didn't just admit that. No, I didn't.

Blood and Chocolate

2011-10-27T16:17:00.008-04:00

I baked cookies with my toddler and preschooler today. Only two of us ended up covered in blood. Only one beer was consumed. The cookies did not burn. Would I do it again?

Max is home sick from school. Ben would be home anyway, but he also has croup. Last night I'd thought it was pertussis, but after dragging both kids to the doctor this morning ($40 for her to pronounce that they seemed fine) I learned that it's "just" croup! Fantastic. Of course my cheerful, clear-breathing duo were hacking like dying emphysemic firefighters as soon as we left the office, but whatever.

We got to mid-afternoon before we all ran out of steam. Max has a new rolling pin and has been begging to make cookies. I could say "no" no longer. It was time to bake.

Let me skip to the highlights:

Ben clinging to my leg sobbing "Mama, Mama, Mama" while Max helpfully smashed entire eggs into the batter.

Max spilling half the chocolate chips all over the floor ("Mommy, I ate all the ones I found on my chair, OK?"

Ben standing on a chair eating eggshells. (Eggshells! A mouthful of them!--after I'd fished them out from the batter.)

One cold beer, sipped slowly (by me). (The doctor, upon learning it was my second day home with sick children, approved their watching some TV/episodes of "Bob the Builder," saying that a sane parent was what was most important and I had to do what I could to stay sane. I figured a mid-afternoon beer fell into the same category.)

Ben using my rolling pin to play golf with some onions he'd pulled out of the potato-and-onion basket. I hope I find all the onions within a week or so.

Blood and chocolate all over me, Max, and the bathroom (Ben is covered in chocolate only). While I was wrapping up the last of the dough to chill in hopes that we could roll it out later with the rolling pin (drop cookies! Can we possibly roll out the dough of drop cookies?), Max insisted he had to climb onto the same chair Ben was on, even though I suggested strongly that he climb onto the next chair over, so they could each have their own chairs.

Does anyone listen to me? Hell, no! A chair scuffle ensued and off pitched Max, crying with a mouthful of blood--so much blood, I feared he'd bitten off part of his tongue. To the bathroom we went, to cuddle him in my lap with a cold wet cloth in his mouth. Ben marched in with a container of applesauce, biting through it until he could suck out the contents. He's only 16 months, but I feel sure he could survive just fine in the wild.

All in all, it wasn't a horrible undertaking, really.

But, see, if I were destined to be a successful cooking-with-kids mommy type, I'd have managed to snap a few photos during the whole fiasco, right?

I probably should have just let them watch TV in the first place, like the doctor suggested.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

2011-10-16T21:01:00.010-04:00

Yesterday I ran a marathon. The Baystate Marathon. My first or second, depending on how you count. I ran well. I ran hard. I cursed the pacers for running too hard a pace much of the time instead of the pace they were supposed to be running, but whatever. Though they dropped out at mile 20, I felt strong enough to maintain that pace and finish ahead of schedule.

Anyway. I have qualified for Boston* and had my best race ever, beating my goal time by a fair amount. Sure, I get some of the credit, but so do (in order of importance, mostly, but also as I'm thinking of their roles yesterday):

1. My excellent, patient husband. He is not a morning person, yet he's put up with many, many early mornings of waking alone with the munchkins while I was out running, dealing with their needs and wants and hungers and "Those are the wrong pants!! WAHHHHH" and oatmeal and such, so many days. And he's been alone every Sunday morning for months and months while I was out for my long run.

2. My friend and running partner Sasha Brown-Worsham. We have been running together since I was pregnant with Max, and we've trained for many races together (unfortunately, she couldn't do the full marathon yesterday but instead did an excellent job in the half). She is a great running partner.

Yeah, I wasn't having a good hair day. Do I care?

2a. Sasha, again. Months ago, she breezily sent me some Runner's World marathon training program. It was awful. So much speedwork (seriously, 13 miles of speedwork on a Tuesday? Are you kidding me??). So much mileage. So hardcore. So damn effective!!

3. My friends Lein, Florentein, Andrew, and all the rest of my trail-running group who happily met for 6 a.m. trail runs or joined me for long runs on weekends if Sasha couldn't.

4. My friend Tom, who always told me that the only way to get faster was by doing speed work. Tom, you were right, of course.

4a. My friend and midwife, Robyn, a champion marathoner and rower. I'll never be the athlete she is, but the thought of her always inspires me to push myself harder.

5. The guy in the blue shirt (long-sleeved) who was my pacing partner for the early part of the race yesterday. I enjoyed running with you until you popped into that portajohn** RIGHT as I was headed for it, and I was forced to wait my turn. That cost me a minute, dude.

6. The guy in the blue shirt (short-sleeved) who was my pacing partner for mile 20-21. He agreed with me that the pacers had been running us too hard and was happy to slow down and lock it into an 8:20 pace for the next few miles. Except somehow I wasn't able to keep that pace, because I needed to run faster, and I eventually sped ahead, leaving him behind. Sorry, guy.

7. The woman in the purple shirt and headband who encouraged me to keep running strong and not slow to an 8:20 pace for miles 20-24. She also kept reminding me to run the tangents, right up into the finish line. Chica, you were right on every count.

8. My children, the thought of whom kept me running hard the last six miles because I was very eager to see them. (Ben was freaked out by my space blanket and refused to let me hold him after the race, but Max insisted I carry him clear around the Tsongas Arena.)

When I lugged Max all the way around to the bag check,
some guy clutching a tree glanced at us and muttered,
"I am so embarrassed right now."
He was struggling to lift each foot
so that his girlfriend could put sweatpants on him.

9. My father, who this week mailed me a loaf of some intense bread called, of course, "Marathon Bread." It contains all kinds of grains, dried fruits, dried carrots, seeds, nuts, and is topped with meusli. It's amazing and powerful stuff.

10. My mother, who came up to watch me run. And my brother and his wife and my nephews, who also spent their Sunday morning going to Lowell to watch me finish.

11. My chiropractor, Nina Englander, who periodically realigns my iliosacral joints and such so that I can walk, stand up straight, and run with an even gait instead of "galumph-splat, galumph-splat."

12. My massage therapist, Raffi, who fixed my chronic hamstring problem in a mere three sessions.

13. My friend Samantha Ainuddin, who made me do that first marathon with her 5 years ago. Sam, we'll do a marathon together again one of these days.

So. Yeah, I'm the one who trained and woke at 5 a.m. and worked hard, but I couldn't have done with without the help of all the of above and more. Thanks, everyone.

* Details, details. I finished in 3:36:02. My supreme "wouldn't it be awesome" goal was 3:38; my actual goal was 3:40; and my "I can live with it" goal was 3:45.

** Hitting the loo might not seem like such a big deal unless you have gels and gu's and such pinned around your waistband, and every time you pull your shorts down the safety pin rips out of the corner of your race number (bib) and you've already ripped it three times already and the timing chip is so close to the edge of the bib that there's nowhere else to pin it and it's just such a huge delicate operation to "drop trou" that you can't risk a hasty pee in the woods.

Sometimes He Makes My Brain Hurt

2011-10-13T21:34:00.004-04:00

Max: Mommy, maybe we can put our pumpkins up on the chimney!

[Note: We have two pumpkins on our front stoop. The bigger one has been carved into a jack-o-lantern; the smaller one had its top cut and its insides hollowed out, but that's as far as the previous owner got before giving it to us at the end of a pumpkin-carving party. We have not yet carved it. The smaller, faceless pumpkin seems to be a sugar pumpkin, as it is constantly besieged with fruit flies.]

Mother: Why would we want to do that?

Max: I don’t know.

Mother: How would we get them up there?

Max [thinks for a minute]: With a ladder! We have a ladder under the stairs. We can use that!

Mother: That’s a good idea.

Max: Which pumpkin should we put up on the chimney, Mommy?

Mother: Um…

Max: Which one would you put up there?

Mother: The smaller one. The one without the face carved.

Max: Why?

Mother: I don’t know. I just think that should be the one.

Max: Why, Mommy?

Mother: Well, that one always has a lot of fruit flies around it, and I don't like fruit flies.

Max: Oh. But why would you want to put a pumpkin up high on the roof? Why would you do that?

[Note: This kind of conversation is especially difficult when I am trying to drive a car.]

The Power of a Word

2011-10-13T09:53:00.004-04:00

"Mom, when is it OK to say 'fucking'?" Max asked me as we pulled up in front of his preschool.

I turned around to look at him. "That is a very bad word. We just don't say that word. We definitely do not say it at preschool, or in front of friends or neighbors, or in front of family, or in front of anyone."

He looked at me, a smile playing at his lips. "But when?"

Deep breath. "If you absolutely must say that word, you can say it when you are all by yourself in your bedroom, so no one else can hear you. You never say it around anyone else."

I am a big fat liar. Max learned the word from me, in fact. I tend to curse like a sailor when I'm tired or stressed or angry (not rare conditions for me, it seems). I try not to drop the f-bomb around the kids, but I suppose I have. Which is why yesterday Max said, in front of our friends and neighbors, when we were talking about his new pet worms, "What are their fucking names?" You could tell from his face that he knew it was a bad word and he was testing our reaction. The other mom managed not to laugh. I managed not to melt into a mortified puddle into the sidewalk. The other child managed not to repeat it.

I told Max very sternly that we do not use that word.

Anyway, so back to the car this morning, when he was wondering when he could use that word.

"If someone is trying to kill me, can I use that word?" he asked. I tried not to laugh. Because, see, despite all the banalities I record here, we actually live a very gangsta lifestyle, and every night we're just lucky we made it through another day, what with the constant drive-by shootings and stuff that, you know, our family is involved in.

[Seriously, kid, if someone is TRYING TO KILL YOU?? Where do you LEARN this stuff??]

Self-defense and survival are not the question, though. My three-year-old's very reasonable question is, if someone is trying to kill you, can you use a very bad word that you are not supposed to use?

I don't know. Maybe it's OK then.

I brought him into school and warned the preschool teacher about his new vocabulary. I even confessed the part about "if someone is trying to kill you...". To my relief, she didn't immediately call Child Protective Services. Instead, she looked very thoughtful. "Hmmm. So he really understands that the word is very powerful."

Powerful, yes! It's not that he has a crass mother--we're actually exploring the power of language! Our home is one big semiotics laboratory!

"Sometimes what parents do come up with another word, with the child, that the child can use instead," she said.

"Like, say, 'frogging'?" I asked.

"Yes, or 'flicking,' something along those lines."

So now it is time to teach Max some new words. And, yes, probably teach myself some new words, too. It is about frogging time I stopped swearing, right?

Chasing Elephants on Bicycle

2011-10-11T21:17:00.004-04:00

I biked hard, hauling the nearly 100-pound trailer (fully loaded with my boys) behind me. I knew the route the elephants would take and tried to cut them off along the way, since we were running late.

We tore through Kendall Square, crossing over toward the river. I asked a cab driver if he had seen the elephants. He had. They were by the Museum of Science.

"Don't worry, Max!" I shouted over my shoulder. "We'll catch up with the elephants!" Ben, by this time, was fast asleep, his helmeted head on his brother's shoulder.

I broke all my cycling rules (plus, well, the law) and biked on the sidewalk. Traffic was backed up--because of the elephants! I just knew it!

If you have mentioned to your preschooler more than once that when the circus comes to town, the elephants walk from the train yard to the circus yard and that maybe he can go watch next time it happens, and then you catch sight of an email on one of your listservs that THE CIRCUS ARRIVES TODAY AND THE ELEPHANTS WILL BE WALKING AT 2 P.M.., well, then, what do you do? [And thanks for the advance notice, Barnum!]

That's right. When you pick up your son from school, you whisper to him that the elephants are here and will be walking down the street and you will take him to go see them, and he beams hugely and throws his arms around your neck unable to speak. Of course then he starts running around with his friends and it's hell to pry him away from there. Plus you're on bike because your husband has the car, and you still have to figure out the best route from here to the river, and you have to stop home to pee and put air in your rear tire...*

So we were late. But how fast can four elephants walk down Memorial Drive, right?

At the Museum of Science we turned right, following the traffic and circus trucks into Boston, to North Station, which is where I'd learned they were headed. I kept shouting to Max that we were going to find the elephants. I didn't think about what would happen if we didn't.

And then we crossed over into the lot at TD Garden and What? Oh my god, those are elephants!! "Max," I shouted happily. "Max, the elephants!" I parked my bike as fast as I could and pulled him out of the trailer and held him up to see the elephants. Ben was waking up so I pulled him out, too, so he could see. Two of the elephants stood by a trailer; a third emerged, and then they linked trunks and trails and marched up a long ramp into TD Garden (formerly the Fleet Center, formerly The Boston Garden). The door rolled down behind them, and just like that, they were gone.

We stared at the place where those amazing, huge animals had just been.

We had arrived just in time. The fourth elephant, we learned, was already inside; two had come out to lure the third in behind them.

So, we didn't see much of the elephants, but it was enough. Max is now terribly excited about the circus. Also, on Thursday there's some kind of elephant brunch in the North End. At the fire station, no less. And it's one elephant's birthday, which they will be celebrating. And it is free. I am sorely tempted to change Ben's check-up at the doctor (standard overdue 15-month visit) and pull Max out of school that day so we can go see elephants! with a birthday! at the fire station! [exclamation points mine]

Wouldn't you?

* We weren't really late. The elephants had arrived early, it seems, according to some poor mom who had run there with her child, running hard but not fast enough to catch up. Ouch.

Book Review: "How to Be an American Housewife"

2011-10-07T15:27:00.004-04:00

Note: As part of the BlogHer book club, I am reviewing Margaret Dilloway's How to Be an American Housewife. Though BlogHer provided me with a copy of the book, all views herein are my own. But besides commenting here, feel free to read the book and chime in to the discussion over at BlogHer!

In Margaret Dilloway's debut novel, she leads us into the captivating story of a Japanese war bride and her retired GI husband. Shoko speaks no English when she marries Charlie, but per her father's wishes, she goes with her new husband to America...leaving behind her first love and carrying with her a huge secret.

Each chapter begins with an excerpt from a (fictional) manual for Japanese war brides called How to Be an American Housewife. It's a guide, in Japanese and English, to assimilating to American culture--how to keep house, how to leave Japan and not look back, how to please an American husband. It's basically a guide to living in 1950s suburban America--if you are from Japan. At times, it made me cringe.

Shoko, if not always a likable character, is a compelling one. Her stilted spoken English jars at times, in contrast with the articulateness of her thoughts. We do feel the pain she feels at being an outcast, the only Japanese woman in her area, who is treated as nothing but strange.

In the second half of the book, another character steps forward: Shoko's daughter, Sue. Mother and daughter don't exactly have a warm relationship. Sue feels constantly criticized by her mother. But when Shoko asks a huge favor of Sue, Sue complies...a mission that will change not only her own life, but that of her daughter and her mother...for the better.

How to Be an American Housewife is a story of Japanese culture in America. It's also a mother-daughter story and a tale of the decisions that can change a life in an instant.

A Day Off!

2011-09-30T12:28:00.006-04:00

It's what people with jobs that have defined hours, paychecks, and retirement plans call a "mental health day." It's what I call an unexpected two open spots at my sons' (son's? Max's former, Ben's current) daycare. I sent them.

Max, now that he's gotten over the third-week-regressive preschool adjustment, really wanted to go to preschool today. But after two days of migraine and a minor ankle sprain, I couldn't bear the thought of yet another long afternoon with a tired preschooler who refuses to nap but is too tired to play by himself. Tired enough to be sweet and snuggly, too tired to keep himself together and act rational during that peak time mid-afternoon when he tends to lose his shit.

I promised that one of his best friends would be there, not knowing that that boy had--at the last minute--opted to stay home with visiting grandparents. Max will never trust me again, I fear.

I've been thinking about this blog a lot lately. It's getting harder to write, maybe because in trying to promote it I of course ended up losing some privacy. Now I'm not sure who is reading it. I'd adjusted to some family members reading it. Friends. Neighbors. Strangers--I'm fine with that, of course, thanks to the magic of anonymity. But now the other parents at my son's cooperative preschool? Some former colleagues? What have I done?

Mostly it's fine, but it does make it harder to write about personal stuff, like the absolute crazy that took me over the first week of preschool, when not only we were adjusting to a new household schedule but I was also trying to reduce my dosage of antidepressants. Hahahahaha. Do not attempt to lower your dosage of anything during a week of big change. I thought I was going to lose my mind completely.

Or my IUD. I know so many of my readers would love my witty, refreshing take on my IUD, but you know? I know many more would probably prefer not to read about it. If ya'll had remained the faceless masses, I'd be writing about all that and more!

Or the fact that I can't seem to hold a thought or write more than two connected sentences these days. I blame the Celexa. I got it together enough to interest an editor in an essay and now I have no idea how to write it. Have I ever written an essay? Do I really have an MFA in creative nonfiction? Have I actually written anything before? What the hell is a paragraph, let alone an idea carried through a literary piece? Oh help.

I can tell you that Ben is now, if not talking up a storm, using a lot more words. I had used this blog to compare his verbosity with Max's at this same age, and of course they are different children. But Ben has a lot more words now. His favorites lately are "Boobay," which is kind of a French pronunciation of "booby" (it kind of rhymes with "toupee" the way he says it). He shouts it at me while pointing to my chest, pointing for me to sit down on the nearest chair/sofa/park bench, and while lifting up my shirt. "Boobay! Boobay! Hey, boobay!" (I kid you not, he shouted this in a restaurant the other night while gesticulating madly at my chest.)

And "cookie." Fierce screams toward the cookie jar. I've finally set some limits. Until now he's gotten away with pretzels before breakfast, walking around the house with food, and so on. Max always had to sit before I gave him food! Ben? I peel him an egg and let him wander off with it. I don't care. The little food-hoover leaves no crumbs, you know? He's one hungry boy. I don't recall Max shrieking at the fridge the way Ben does, willing it to open so he can grab yet another yogurt. Now that he can handle dairy, he can eat 4-5 yogurts a day. Not little 4-oz kid yogurts, no. Full-sized grown-up ones. I'd buy him his own quarts except he wouldn't be able to carry them to the table.

And "no." This morning Max was using the hamper to push Ben into the kitchen wall and pin him there and Ben was saying, "No!" Max would say, "Yes!" and push the hamper (one of those soft mesh-and-wire ones) into Ben, and Ben would say, "No!" again.

C and I looked at each other in delight.

"Wow, is he saying 'no'?" C said.

"Yes, I think he is! He's never used it like that before!" I said. Of course it didn't occur to either of us to stop Max from doing what he was doing, so taken were we by Ben's new word usage. Poor Ben. His next words will probably be "Please adopt me!" to the nearest responsible adults.

So that's about all that is going on here. That and I got a migraine Wednesday, my first in about 30 years, and I woke up with a mysterious sprained ankle yesterday. Two weeks before my marathon, no less. Keeping it fun, for sure!

Chicken Soup with Rice? Or Ham Vomit?

2011-09-21T22:30:00.006-04:00

I'm glad I left you all with the warm fuzzy hazy-edged image of a Kleenex/Campbell's/Hallmark commercial, devoted mother and grateful child sharing smiles over a bowl of soup. Chicken soup with rice, in this case.

Let me tell you what really happened:

Child awoke from nap, cheerful and happy.

Mother offered her loving soup.

Child declined. Asked to watch video.

Mother pointed out that he'd already watched a video. Suggested they go get a cookie, since she was madly craving a sweet treat.

Child thought this was a good idea.

Mother suggested they get a cookie and then head to the track, where she could do the track workout she was supposed to do the previous day and child could play with his soccer ball. Because what feverish, ill child doesn't want to play soccer? Alone? While his mother runs intervals?

Child, being very much like the mother, agreed that this was a great idea. As long as we stopped to get the cookies first.

Child crawled into mother's lap (mother now eagerly clad in her running clothes). Said he didn't want cookies. Or a cupcake. Said he wanted to stay home.

Mother cuddled child, carried him to living room, offered juice.

Child refused all offers of drinks and food.

Mother set up a video and brought in her ham sandwich with German mustard and hummus.

Child grabbed sandwich, declared he would share it with mother, and ate most of it.

Child wanted to lie on sofa with mother. Said he didn't want to watch a video.

Mother cuddled next to child.

Child's eyes widened and then he let forth a stream of vomit into mother's face. Including on her mouth. Which was slightly open.

Child vomited again. And again. Mother stood him up. He vomited more.

He had not chewed the ham sandwich well. That much was obvious.

Mother calmed and cleaned up child and herself, put child to bed in her bed.

Child begged mother to say. She tried not to think of vomit seeping into futon in living room, and she snuggled her child until he was almost asleep.

Mother ate half a bag of chocolate chips and then cleaned up the living room, trying not to notice the size of the ham chunks.

Child--not asleep--emerged from bedroom and asked to sleep on sofa. Mother put wrestled the (cleaned) futon into a clean spare cover and laid child down.

Child dozed briefly. Then he rode his scooter to the playground and zoomed all around with his friends before eating all the snacks on the way home.

By the time his father got home, child was bouncing off the walls with good health and vitality. While mother left to go run at the track, child told enthusiastic stories, ate a big dinner plus ice cream, told his mother he loved her (upon her return), and went to bed at an almost-reasonable time.

No one has eaten a single bite of the chicken soup with rice.

Sick Days and Book Soup

2011-09-21T12:22:00.008-04:00

Ginger ale, Saltines, chicken soup. Bendy straws. Cool fresh sheets. Cold washcloth on my forehead. That's what sick meant when I was a child.

Unfortunately, since we are raising Max to be a self-reliant small adult living in our hovel, we offer none such niceties. That's not true. We have bendy straws.

I was grocery shopping on Monday and the store had a sale on Saltines and chicken soup. I thought, "Hey, I should stock up on this stuff in case the kids get sick!"

Then I thought, "Nah, they won't get sick for a few months yet. Anyway, I'll wait until I get to [YUPPIE SPOILER ALERT] Whole Foods." OK, you may call me a snob. But I'd rather not feed my child some canned stuff that contains maltodextrin and MSG and modified food starches and all that. If I am going to buy canned soup (which I am not), I'm going to buy soup that just has regular food ingredients in it. [Oh my god, I really sound like a snob--but if I had had a pull-top can of Campbell's on hand today, I probably would have offered it to him.]

Naturally, I forgot to buy any of the stuff at Whole Foods, since it wasn't piled in huge stacks at the end caps with enormous red signs saying "5 for $5!"

And naturally, that very night Max got sick. He showed up at my bedside around 11 or 12, whimpering, and I pulled him into bed, where he tossed and turned and moaned until 4 a.m. I kept feeling his head, but it wasn't hot. His feet were, and then his hands, but not his head. When he (and I) finally fell asleep around 4, for some reason I thought I could still get up at 5 a.m. to do my track workout. Hahahahaha. Because doing a long, hard track workout after an hour of sleep, and then tending the toddler all day (I was still thinking Max would head to preschool) is such an awesome idea!

I smacked that alarm right off and slept blissfully until the ripe hour of 6:11. Much better!

He insisted on going to school, so we made the trek over only to have the director take his temperature and send us home.

Max spent the day alternating between being half-dead on the sofa and jumping around, playing the clarinet and eating everything in sight, depending on the timing of his dose of ibuprofen. By dinnertime I was convinced he could go to school the following day. Except...at 10:30 p.m. or so I checked the parent handbook only to learn of the policy whereby a kid has to be fever-free for a day before returning to school.

Then I accidentally emailed the entire preschool parent list, instead of just the director, to clarify that Max couldn't go to school today, thereby outing myself as the sort of parent who tries to send her sick kid to school ("and she doesn't even have a job to get to, can you believe it? She's a stay-at-home mom!"). [Just kidding: the school community seems very nice, and I doubt they'd say anything like that.]

Today started off well enough. He was fine. I left him with a sitter while I went to an appointment. Did I stop and stock up on sick-day supplies on my way home? Why would I? He was better!

He arrived home from the playground with a fever, crying and miserable. I tried to convince him to go to the store with me for ginger ale, crackers, and soup but he only wanted to stay in bed, refusing juice. Refusing juice! My son!

I panicked. What the hell would I feed him? How would I tend him? We had some graham crackers leftover from our vacation in August. A few pretzels. Lots of tomatoes and parsnips from our farm share. Apple juice. Meatballs. For a moment I'm glad my mother didn't come up for the day, as we'd discussed, because I could hear her asking (in that tone--you know that tone that mothers can get?), "Why don't you have any Saltines or canned soup or ginger ale in the house, for when the children are sick?" And then we would have gotten into a big argument about factory farming and processed foods and the safety of the food supply and the wisdom of Mark Bittman and convenience versus sustainability and all that, and it would have gone badly.

I read Max his current favorite book, Chicken Soup with Rice, and had my answer. I cuddled him to sleep, pulled some stock from the freezer, some chicken and vegetables from the fridge. The chicken soup with rice will be ready when he wakes up.

Now I'll grate some fresh ginger to make him ginger-lemon tea. I also contemplated baking him homemade crackers but decided that that is going a little overboard (I know, I know, a mother's love can never go overboard, but would you want a pan of crackers burning in the oven while your sick child wakes up and wants you to hold him? We have sensitive smoke alarms, you know?)

Ah, hippie motherhood. I will never bypass the stacks of Saltines again, even if most of the box ends up going stale in our cabinet. For the three crackers he would have eaten, the purchase would have been worth it.

If I Could Turn Back Time

2011-09-12T09:35:00.005-04:00

First day of preschool today.

I am doing well. I completely lost my shit last night while packing his lunch in his new dinosaur lunchbox. I'm sure it didn't help that we were out of bread (no PBJ) and sliced turkey (so much for Plan B, turkey roll-ups!). I did assemble a nice lunch for him (there is nothing wrong with peanut butter on graham crackers, right?) with his favorite fruits and vegetables and one of those juice boxes he likes and some surprise Pirate's Booty (green).

But there I was, bawling. C came into the kitchen. "What's the matter?" he asked. I couldn't speak. I held out one of the little food containers.

"Um, you couldn't find a lid?"

"No, don't you see?"

"Um, there's something wrong with the carrot sticks?" he guessed.

I swept my arm toward the lunch box. "Look," I sobbed. "He's growing up. He's gone."

"It's just preschool. It's like daycare, except he doesn't stay for a nap," C pointed out.

"No, it's not. It's different. It's preschool tomorrow and before we know it he'll be leaving for college and gone forever. He won't need us anymore." One baby step toward the outside world, and our babies don't come back, right? There's too much to see and do and learn.

Max, who's gone from excited to nervous, was back to excited today. That's a relief. The past few days he'd been saying he felt sick. Yesterday I finally asked if he were nervous about starting school.

"Yes," he said in a small voice.

I told him, once again, as much as I could about it, about his friends who'd be there with him, about the new friends he'd make, about the day's schedule and snacktime and lunch. Reminded him I'd pick him up right after lunch. Reminded him that they had the cool police helmet with the green visor in the dress-up area.

This morning he was excited again, dressed and ready well before it was time to leave. He pulled his lunchbox out of the fridge and carried it down the stairs. We dropped off Ben at his daycare (somehow without his big brother to spend the day there with him, Ben was much less happy to be dropped off, but onward Max and I marched, waving goodbye to Ben, who will be fine).

We passed various friends and neighbors on our walk to school, all of them excited for Max and wishing him good luck on his first day of school. He smiled proudly and clutched his lunchbox more tightly. For the last half-block, we fell into step with another preschool friend and her father and walked the rest of the way with them.

By the time most of the kids had arrived, Max had done a firetruck puzzle (he never does puzzles!), invited a friend to play in the boat, and was busy being construction workers with his most long-term friend. I tried to kiss him goodbye, but he needed to ask the director a question about one of the trucks. I gave a hug anyway, planted a kiss, and walked out the door...managing not to cry.

And now I wish I could roll back the years, a fast rewind, almost put him back inside (if that makes any sense), and do these years again, more slowly, savoring them. I didn't know preschool would be such a big step--for me. I thought I'd be the mom popping the champagne cork as the school bus pulled away on his first day of school. Instead, I'm the woman weeping quietly at Starbucks, mourning my firstborn's baby years already.

He's only three, and already growing up too fast...

Does this boy look nervous to you?
He is SO ready for school.

"Slow Love" by Dominique Browning

2011-09-08T23:01:00.003-04:00

If you drank lots of wine and then slipped down under the surface of the bath to consider the life you’d lived thus far, you’d be Dominique Browning, post-job loss, post-breakup, post-grown sons moving on with their lives. But it is not a consideration full of despair, somehow. It’s a clear look back with no blame and no regrets.

It is “loss and change” month here for me, at least in my reading list. After reading two Isabel Gillies memoirs about the end of her marriage, I’m reading Slow Love by Dominique Browning, about the loss of her career at Conde Nast.

But it’s about so much more than that. She’d also recently ended a long-term love affair and seen her sons begin their own lives as adults. She’s on her own in every facet of her life, and her book is a musing on what she no longer has and what that means.

She doesn’t dwell in self-pity, however. She didn’t have much control over her career, to some degree, publishing doing what it did in 2008. She notes that the love affair had red flags from the very beginning (he was married and not entirely honest about it, for one thing). And her sons—well, kids grow up.

It’s hard not to cringe for her when she eats peanut butter and wine for dinner, or when the realtor implies that she’s a quirky recluse. But somehow Browning stays afloat, held above water by a buoyancy many of us could only wish for.

[Note: I'm in the BlogHer Book Club and am reviewing this for them. I did receive a review copy of the book. I am really enjoying it and recommend it, if you couldn't tell.]

"Yes, honey, I do remember."

2011-09-07T07:52:00.005-04:00

I'm organizing the containers-and-lids drawer in the kitchen and listening with half an ear to a Morning Edition piece about an elementary school which lost a student and a teacher in the 9/11 attacks.

I've forgotten that Max listens to the radio, too, busy as he is adding raisins and cranberries to our oatmeal bowls.

"I don't remember that, Mommy," he says suddenly. "I don't remember that emergency."

I freeze. And now I suddenly understand what it must have been like--what it must be like, what it will be like--for parents to try to explain the tragedy to their children: how to make sense of it without scaring the pants off of them or making them terrified of their parents leaving for work, to talk about the aftermath making it too political. How to explain all the deaths. How to explain about planes and fires. How to explain, should they ever see the images and news stories (and they will) about bodies falling from windows, final desperate cell phone calls, children without parents.

I didn't yet have children when it happened. I didn't really think about what parents had to deal with in explaining this event. Now I am starting to understand.

For now, he will probably focus more on the words "emergency" and "fire" and less on "student who died" or "Pentagon" or "terrible sound." I hope.

"Do you remember, Mommy? Do you remember that emergency?" he asks me.

I do, honey. We all remember that emergency. Right now, I'd honestly rather you just go play "Rescue Guy" in the living room with a fire hat and a skid loader and forget what you'll be hearing on the radio all this weekend, the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Terrorist attacks, honey, are hard to explain.

But when you are ready, I will do my best to explain it to you in a way that makes some sense and doesn't scare you.

How to Make an 18-Mile Training Run Feel Like a Full Marathon

2011-09-04T11:27:00.004-04:00

1. Eat beans and drink too much wine the night before.

2. Wear your least-comfortable sports bra, the one that rides up and chafes. If you're a guy, wear the equivalent (or, even better, wear a sports bra!).

3. Run the first 8 miles way too fast. You're a rock star! You're so awesome! You're so...unable to hold that pace for the last ten miles and instead just feel pain. Everywhere. Without cheering crowds, mile markers, smiling supporters, or kind people handing you cups of Gatorade to distract you from the weird ache in your foot, the soreness in your shin, the murmur of that old muscle tear in your hip, or the gradual stiffening of your calves.

4. Get lost. Lose an entire rail trail, if you can, so that you end up noodling around the spiraling back roads of Cape Cod with the ocean appearing on your left and then on your right even though you are on the south shore and have not changed directions.

5. Eat beans and drink too much wine the night before. This tip bears repeating because, if you do it right, this can make a training run of any length feel like a full marathon. Except full marathons usually have facilities at regular intervals (or at least every 7 or 10 miles or so) and long runs on a Sunday morning on Cape Cod do not.

Don't just take my word for it. Try these tips and see for yourself!

When Yuppie Sneaks Up on You

2011-08-28T07:08:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, my three-year-old was almost late to soccer practice in Winchester because while I was buying Frappucinos with my Starbucks gold card, Chris ordered some freshly-baked breakfast rolls at a nearby bread shop and they weren't yet out of the oven.

I know how that all sounds. I can't really believe it, either. Lest you spit "Yuppie!! Filthy capitalist pig yuppie!!" at me, let me break this down a little bit:

"Soccer practice" is a soccer-ball-related program designed for preschoolers; it involves songs and games and is about as competitive as knitting. We knew Max would enjoy it, and some of his friends are doing it with him.

"Winchester" refers to a local wealthy town so white I don't think they have a temple. (Whoops, just found out they do have one.) We do not live in Winchester. We rent a semi-crummy apartment in a town that is very different from Winchester.

We arrived early to soccer and while at the playground, Max needed a bathroom. The nearest one we could think of was in the town center, and Starbucks is usually a reliable place to find a bathroom.

I have a Starbucks gold card only because a couple of years ago someone gave me a $5 Starbucks gift card, and if you use it enough times you get upgraded to a gold card. And the Frappucino was for C. I'm such a miser that I always only get a small (sorry, "tall") coffee. Except I was buying a pound of coffee and they give you the small (sorry, "tall") coffee free with that but if you have a gold card you can upgrade it for free with soymilk or flavors or whatever, so actually I was getting a soy mocha latte like an actual real soccer mom. But whatever.

While trying to find a parking spot to wait for us, C found this lovely bread bakery that's apparently famous for its breakfast rolls. He bought several. We had to wait for them to come out of the oven. The rolls are amazing, even the next day.

So that is how a perfectly normal regular family such as ours can appear to be the biggest yuppies in the world.

But it gets worse. On the way home from soccer, we stopped at Whole Foods to stock up on hemp milk, almond milk, and dark chocolate. Later, I found myself pushing our double Phil&Ted's Sport (with rain cover) with a 12-pack of microbrew safely tucked into the bottom.

Yuppie! Yuppie!

But listen. Ben still can't drink cow's milk, so we needed to stock up on the other stuff in case the stores were closed today due to the hurricane. And dark chocolate keeps me from getting too bitchy--pretty crucial stuff, if we're going to be housebound for a few days of bad weather.

And after seeing all those news photos of people lugging cases of beer in preparation for Hurricane Irene, and hearing all my local friends mention they too had stocked up on the brewskies, I realized our own beer supply was low. Forgetting, of course, that unlike my childless friends, I couldn't well start watching movies and sipping beer at noon, and that if I have more than two beers in a day I'm asking for a bad morning the next day, I decided to head out into the rain to go buy some beer.

For some reason, we decided to make this a family trip (what, you don't take your children out for a walk in heavy rain to the liquor store?). C walked with Max, and I pushed Ben in the stroller. C and Max did stay on the train bridge to watch for trains instead of coming all the way to buy beer with me, for what that's worth.

So, that was our big yuppie Saturday. Even retelling it kind of makes me want to take a hot shower and go eat Doritos in front crappy daytime TV, just to make up for it.

I really mean it. I'm not a yuppie.

Finesse

2011-08-22T21:40:00.003-04:00

"I'll do Max," I said.

C tends to force things: lids, stuck bolts, tiny things that are wedged, children. I tend to take a gentler approach, applying some wiggle and some pressure and some backing off and some pressure again and some finagling and negotiating. Often things respond well to some finessing, whereas they simply break under pressure.

Then again, I suppose I let Max dictate too much around here sometimes. C is better at getting obedience without fear, whereas I tend to let the kid get more and more of his own way until I yell in frustration and probably scare him.

When we go to bed, one of us (usually C) gives Ben a bottle and changes his diaper (soon, soon, we need to get that kid into nighttime diapers and stop with the dream feed--he really doesn't need it), and the other one (usually me) hauls sleeping Max to the bathroom, props him up, pulls down his pants, convinces him it is OK to pee now, and then carries him back to bed.

When I do Max, it is smooth sailing. He barely wakes. The few times C has done it, it's been tears and screaming and howling and refusing to pee and then peeing in his bed a few hours later, in his sleep. Honestly, I just thought C sucked at this whole "gentle waking to pee" thing.

So though I nearly had us switch roles one recent night, at the last minute I decided not to. Because, you know, I've got the gentle touch. It's much smoother when I do it.

I woke Max at exactly the wrong time in his sleep cycle or something. He was crying before we were in the bathroom. "I don't have to pee! I don't have to pee!" he shrieked. I carried him back to bed, screaming and sobbing and thrashing (him, I mean, not me) and cuddled with him on the bed while he threw a raging tantrum. I tried to get him to return to the bathroom but he screamed and thrashed, so I simply put him back to bed...in our bed, where he starts the night (we put him into his own bed after his late-night pee).

C passed our room on his way to get Ben's bottle and shook his head at the scene.

Max cried, then calmed, but kept holding his penis. "Do you have to pee, honey?" I'd ask him. He'd cry and scream again, "No! I don't have to pee!"

Then he started screaming louder, kneeling on the bed, and I felt a hot spurt of liquid. Accidents really distress him. I carried him to the bathroom, by which time he was all done peeing. I calmed him down, removed our pee-soaked clothes, cleaned him (and me) up, and brought him back to our room to snuggle for a little bit, to quiet him, before getting him dressed and to his own bed.

C, who'd already fed and changed Ben and gotten him back to sleep, came in. A few steps into the room, he was lifting his feet high. "What the--?"

"Max had an accident," I said calmly, as C came closer to the bed. I think he actually slightly splashed in a puddle. "Oh my god!" he said. He never says that.

"There was a lot of pee," I said.

C was peeling off his socks and grabbing for a towel to mop up the floor. "The bed's pretty wet, too," I said, trying to be helpful.

I carried Max back to his bed and curled up with him for a little while until he was asleep. Then I emerged to find that C had cleaned up all the pee and the pile of pee-soaked clothes from the bathroom floor.

"See?" I said, patting his shoulder. "It just takes a gentle touch, like I said."

Transitions

2011-08-12T20:26:00.007-04:00

I gathered my running gear over the course of the past week. Loaded a small bag with foodstuffs: multigrain cereal, small boxes of coconut milk, protein bars, bananas. I made homemade granola and then used it to make granola bars, adding generous amounts of chocolate chips: my teammates would appreciate the treat. Friday, today, I'd pick up a small red clip-on blinking light per race regulations, throw my headlamp and reflective vest (also per race regulations) into my bag, stuff a wool jacket, raincoat, hat, gloves, and wool socks into my pack, and pick up our team captain before heading up to Vermont to meet the rest of our team.

Ben's fever would break soon, right?

Tomorrow, you see, is the Vermont 100 on 100 relay, a 100-mile relay race I've run once before. It's a beautiful run through the heart of Vermont. Each person of a 6-person team runs 3 legs of the race, averaging 15 miles total. While one person runs, the rest of the team drives in their van to the next transition area, and the next runner gets ready to catch the baton (or snap-on wristband, as it tends to be).

I was runner #5. My legs would have totaled about 17.5 miles. We'd all spend Friday night in a ski condo near the finish line, then get up at (or before) dawn Saturday to drive to the start and register. Based on the estimated pace times of the runners on my team, our team was to start the race at 8 a.m. and was predicted to finish around 9:30 p.m. Night runners have to wear the lights and reflective gear.

The race ends at a beer-filled BBQ full of exhausted, laughing runners. Crazy people who have just spend an entire day running (or hanging out in the transition areas when not running). I love this sort of scene. It's such a high. Last time, after the race, we drove back to the condo and sat around in an exhausted stupor, sipping beer and watching--I kid you not--a documentary about the Western States 100. I mean, can you get more running-geek than that?

But all week Ben, age 14 months, has been fighting a fever. It started suddenly Monday evening but didn't stop. By Wednesday it was 103, 104, and he was lethargic. The doctor, when I called, said if we can't bring it down with acetaminophen or ibuprofen or baths to bring him in. Or if he stopped drinking. Wednesday evening he vomited water but then laughed, played, had a normal temperature, ate dinner (he hadn't eaten all day), seemed fine.

Of course the fever came back with a vengeance that night and Thursday morning he was at 104.1 again and listless. I took him to the doctor, who thought we should head to the children's hospital for evaluation, blood tests, and possible IV rehydration.

The time in the emergency department was a lot of waiting, of course, with frequent nursing mixed with reaching for Daddy, punctuated by a lot of screaming and crying (all three of us, for the crying part) when Ben was catheterized (by someone who seemed to hate penises, if you ask me) and when they tried to get an IV line in. That was pretty horrible, the first time. As a former regular blood donor, I know what it feels like when they fish around and keep trying to get the vein. And my veins aren't teeny-tiny miniature veins collapsed flat from dehydration. And they're never fishing around on the back of my hand. And I wasn't a terrified toddler/baby.

So I finally shouted "Enough!" but the woman didn't stop. I may then have said "Stop it!" and she finally did, and it turns out she thought that when I'd yelled "Enough!" she thought--she actually thought--that I was telling Ben to stop screaming. Really. The baby I was sobbing over and cringing for and desperately trying to calm by stroking his head and singing "Twinkle Star" in a quavering-with-tears voice--I'm going to yell at him? To stop crying?

Let's move on. Please.

The next person to attempt running an IV line was actually from "the IV team," which as far as I can tell means "total pro who does her best to get a vein into view before stabbing for it." To make a long story short, they decided to admit Ben due to dehydration and run an IV drip into him, because his serum sodium and other electrolytes were low.

We'd dropped off Max at my brother's house on our way to the hospital. For him, that was a real treat. Two cousins his age, my wonderful brother and his wonderful wife, toys, bike outings, ice cream, crafts, playgrounds, homemade cookies...we knew we didn't have to worry about him.

C slept on one of those excellent (or not!) hospital pull-out chairs, and I slept in the crib with Ben and his long IV line. He was utterly exhausted by the time we went to bed around midnight. So was I.

But the race.

I'd emailed my friend/the team captain from the emergency room to warn him I might not make the race after all. I later emailed the whole team, in case anyone could find a sub for me. One teammate, Jeff, said he could, if I could decide for sure by noon today. These aren't just "teammates." They are old friends, running buddies, people I haven't seen in a while because they live or have moved out of state. So this race was a reunion of sorts.

I still thought that maybe, just maybe, if Ben was fine, we could leave the hospital, scoop up Max, return home, and I'd grab my running gear and food and go, heading into the race with a three-night sleep deficit but still eager to run my 17.5 miles through Vermont. I'd spend Saturday laughing and snacking in transition areas, changing into dry gear in the van, happily spent by the time we hit the post-race barbecue.

At 3 a.m.--after that goddamned IV machine beeped yet again, seemingly every 15 minutes, because despite my utter carefulness to keep the line free despite all our tossing and turning and "let me nurse at that other breast, please" in the crib, any time Ben flexed his hand the line kinked, the drip was occluded, and the machine would beeeep! beeeep! beeeeep! until the nurse would come in to reset it--I emailed Jeff and told him to tell his friend she could have my spot.

And yet I still held out hope. By morning, after we'd managed a few hours' sleep and Ben awoke thirsty and hungry and ready for fun, we thought maybe I could still go the race. Chris and the kids would be fine.

But three nights of super-crappy interrupted sleep, plus what if Ben felt traumatized by all of this and wanted to nurse a lot over the next few days, and what if Max's homecoming wasn't totally smooth, and would I really be able to relax three hours' away and out of reach and worried about my family...I knew I was making the right choice, ditching the race. Of course it helps that my team had a sub for me.

And as it turns out, the transitions to home were a little tough. Ben has barely slept since his morning nap yesterday, so despite his vigor and his joy at being home, he was tired and cranky and falling and wanted to be held, to nurse. Max, for his part, had his own stuff to work out upon getting back into the bosom of his family, needing lots of cuddling and attention and more attention and perhaps a whole truckload more. We got them to bed blessedly early and honestly, I know it's best that I stay home to help care for my family and getting a little bit of rest instead of piling into a car at 5:30 a.m. with enough running gear, food, warm gear, rain gear, and night-running gear to get me through a very full day of running, transitions, more running, rain and thunderstorms, night running....

....aw, dangit, of course all this talk of running kind of makes me wish I were up there getting read to run the 100 on 100.

I'm a better runner than I was the last time I ran the 100 on 100, but my life has changed in other ways, too. I'm responsible for more than just myself now.

We'll have a mundane, quiet family weekend. Max will have his first soccer "practice" tomorrow. I'll run 16 miles on Sunday with my friend/running partner. The kids will play. Maybe we'll go out for ice cream or go to the beach. There won't be any fevers, sudden health problems, nonstop nursing needs, or tantrums due to wanting Mommy or Daddy's attention. And if there are, I'm here to help deal with them.

I can run the relay next year.

Follow-up: Saturday morning at 4 a.m. I awoke to Ben's cries. When I walked into his room, instead of the usual "Dada," he said "Mama!" A few hours later, sleeping in my bed again, Max woke up next to me (when did Max get into our bed, and why is he naked?) and asked, "Mommy, are you going running today?" I told him I wasn't, at least not for some epic long run this morning. Then: "Is Daddy going to work today?" No, Daddy's home today.
Huge grin and ecstatic hug from Max. "So we're all going to be together today?" he asked, still grinning. "Yes, honey." He was so happy.
Plus then Chris woke up sick.
So yeah, the right choice. Thanks, universe, for confirming it so soundly.

Ben's Vocabulary

2011-08-04T21:41:00.003-04:00

I know Ben's gotten the short end of the stick in terms of blog coverage. Sorry, Benjamin. There are a few posts I want to write about you but haven't yet!

Anyway, he's very communicative these days. He has a few words, and I think he's fairly normal, but Max was an early talker and, as C has pointed out, was a lot more talkative/had many more words than Ben at this point (and I have the blog post to prove it).

But Ben has some words:

Daddy (more like "Daddy!!", always said with excitement and urgency; C seems to be his favorite person, though I'm a very close second)
Mama (not often)
Dada (means many things; kind of like "that" or "what's that?")
Cat (or a similar-sounding word that means "cat," at least)
Daw (sort of--there's a specific word/sound he has for "dog")
Apple (this word is VERY clearly stated)
Peach (the cutest, softest word when he says it: "peesh," with the "sh" very soft and open, his face lit up in anticipation of the fruit)

Today he said "turkey" when I was waving it at him and singing a very repetitive little song about it, a song I'd made up. He doesn't say "cheese" since he never eats the stuff (he still cannot).

I wonder if he's just a victim of second child syndrome, whereby he gets ignored/left to play with his big brother or on his own instead of being dragged to every infant development class, music class, singalong, story hour, etc. for fear he might miss out on some kind of stimulation offered in this overachieving town. [That said, I wish I had Max in music, yoga, and swimming classes, and I wish I had Ben in music classes and playgroups as well as attending frequent story hours. *sigh* I kind of suck as a mom lately. I am totally overwhelmed by such things as planning and schedules right now.]

Anyway, while he's perfectly normal and fine in his language development, I don't think it would hurt at all (at all!!) to give it just a little more attention: to name more things more often, to sing more songs ("Wheels on the Bus," "Itsy Bitsy Spider"), to repeat words and try to get him to repeat words.

At least he communicates perfectly clearly with his body language, which is great.

A Deal I Can't Refuse

2011-08-01T13:50:00.007-04:00

"Police Officer, do you want to come on my boat?" Max asks me. He's wearing a red plastic fire helmet and a plastic gold-colored fire department badge that he insists is a police badge. We were firefighters for a long time, but for the past week and a half we've been busy EMTs, riding our ambulance and saving the babies (dolls) with our medical kit.

Today we are police officers, since a birthday party and its attendant favors yesterday. The boat is the coffee table, turned upside down.

I think of the birthday-planning emails I need to send, the schedule I need to sort out, the various computer-based tasks I need to take care of. Also, it's nearly 2 p.m. and I'm finally preparing my lunch.

"Well, honey, I need to eat lunch and send some emails," I tell him.

"It's free to eat lunch on my boat!" he says. "It's also free to work!" He beams up at me, problem solved.

Problem solved, indeed. Except it's really hard to perch on something the size of a plank with a bowl of salad and a laptop, and a very active preschooler using an old joystick to "steer" the boat to emergencies.

But I'm a police officer, and a job is a job...

Chokin' Down the Humble Pie

2011-07-28T21:23:00.005-04:00

I went to yoga yesterday. Carol's Intermediate class, to be exact. Carol is intense. She walks around calling the poses instead of demonstrating them, sometimes mixing up "left" and "right" which leaves us looking around at each other in confusion. But yesterday she only mixed them up a few times.

Of course, I may have walked into class yesterday with a tiny bit of ego, possibly the teensiest touch of "Oh, I just went to Kripalu for the weekend and did yoga constantly, including a "vigorous" class which was so intense I barely remember it, so my practice is all honed and I'm so cool." There just may have been a little touch of that. Just a touch. Also I was harried upon arrival and was checking my phone and texting the babysitter and needing to borrow a water bottle.

So maybe my focus was off, or maybe a basics class was more my speed yesterday, or maybe Carol caught my vibe and decided to go for the jugular (very un-yogalike, I know; she's very nice and I doubt that was it).

Low crane went mostly fine. High crane? Hurt my triceps and I just couldn't get my knees into my pits. Bird of paradise? Sure, if you don't expect my leg to be straight or my form to be anything near to good. Bird of paradise variation balance pose? Thunk is the sound of me falling over. Repeatedly.

I slunk out of there feeling like I'd just gotten my yogic ass handed to me on a platter. Yoga has a knack for giving me exactly what I need, or telling me what I need to look at, and of course going in there with scattered energy and some cockiness earned me exactly that.

I biked home. My knockdown of a day wasn't over yet, though. I put Ben into the jogging stroller and headed out for a 9-mile speed workout: 3 miles at marathon goal pace, 2 miles at 30 seconds/mile fast than goal pace, recovery, another 2 miles at the 30-seconds-faster pace, then 2 more miles at marathon goal pace. My running partner had handled this run marvelously the previous day; there was no reason to expect I couldn't do the same.

Ha!

It was only 80 degrees out. I say "only" because I survived running in our recent heat waves without disaster.

And so I didn't think I needed to worry about the heat. I started out too fast, got through my first 3 miles and then the 2-mile speedwork (grunting as though I were in labor, doing a loop on the bikepath and a nearby smoothly paved street, wondering if my grunting and very vocal panting were disturbing people). I had to stop twice for fear of vomiting. I never get queasy when I run. Sweat poured of my head. I'm not usually a big sweat-er.

After the recovery walk, I didn't feel like I was quite ready to do that again. Plus, in terms of time (I had to pick up Max from daycare) and distance from home, I thought I should modify things a little. I ran a half-mile at my marathon goal pace and then launched into the 2-mile speedwork again.

But something was wrong. My stomach hurt like I was going to vomit blood or bile. I stopped. I no longer cared about my watch or my pace or my distance. My problem hamstring was clenched into a tight ball. All I could think was, "I need to get home. I need to get home now."

I was freezing. I got goose bumps. I tried to keep running and decided to give up on the speed pace. I got off the busy road to a quieter road and stopped again. I couldn't run. I checked my phone and saw an email from my running partner about something unrelated. She'd sent it an hour earlier, but I didn't notice that. All I could think was, "I'll let her know." I sent her an email telling her I thought I was in trouble. She didn't reply (she wasn't near her phone/computer at the time, I found out later). I didn't want to call my husband--what would I say, "Hi, honey, I'm having heat stroke, I'm out with the baby, I'm 2 miles from home, but don't worry about me"??

I was so cold. I wanted a jacket and hat and gloves and long pants. I remembered the time I summitted Mt. Jefferson in a whiteout (dumbest fucking thing I ever did, perhaps; people die up there in the same conditions we were in) and how cold it was then, my eyelashes frosting up, and I thought I was warmer then than I was yesterday. My phone was blank--no emails from my running partner or anyone. I collapsed in someone's yard and hugged myself and cried.

But I had Ben with me. He was quiet in the stroller, thank god. I had to get him home and keep him safe. I don't know how I was in an icy whiteout in Somerville in July, but I was, and I had to keep us alive. As I did on Jefferson, I kept a tiny shred of wit about me. I got up and moved. I kept moving in the right direction, toward safety. I'd be warm soon. I'd be fine.

We got home. I put on more clothes. Our apartment was 83 degrees and I pulled on long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, socks. After the kids went to bed I was still freezing. I made hot tea and couldn't eat much for dinner.

I'm fine today. I guess it was heat exhaustion. I skipped today's workout, because I felt like crap. But then I ate about half a pound of beef (literally), a ton of pasta, and some chocolate-beet cake
and I feel excellent and strong now. Tomorrow at dawn I'll meet a friend or two for a long trail run, and I'll be fine for my 15-miler on Sunday.

What did I learn from all this? So much. So, so much. Just because a heat wave is over doesn't mean it's not still hot out; I need to respect the heat more. And if I need to adjust the training schedule, so be it. I'm going to be stronger for the marathon if I take care of myself now instead of running myself into the ground.

As for yoga? I'm always learning something there. A hearty dose of humility is always nice, to be honest. And now I have even more to strive for.

Kripalu: My Weekend Away

2011-07-24T22:27:00.005-04:00

For weeks or more my husband has suggested I go to Kripalu for the weekend. That is a pretty amazing offer on a zillion fronts, not the least of which is that we have two very small children who need constant attention.

If you're the person who looks after those children 12 hours a day--knowing their rhythms and their quirks, what is guaranteed to set off a tantrum and what's the fastest way to get the baby down for a nap--at least five days a week, you might find caring for them at times stressful, often exhausting, and count down the dinnertime minutes 'til your spouse walks in the door.

If you're not used to caring for them for hours and hours on end, on your own, then to offer to do so from Friday through Sunday indicates either supreme naivete or--in my husband's case--a brave and generous way to show your wife you truly care about her well-being.

I didn't spend much time thinking about it. I booked my weekend. So did my friend Justine. On the appointed Friday we headed west, our yoga clothes and books and notebooks packed.

It's really hard to describe what it's like to spend the weekend in a yoga-focused place that's unintrusive yet nurturing; with excellent, healthful, plentiful food; with plenty of classes and workshops and activities to fill your day, as well as beautiful spaces and views and a lake and numerous sitting areas if you want to spend the whole weekend writing or reading or just staring out at the view...

In short, some highlights:

Lots of yoga. Very good, well-instructed yoga.

Getting lost in the woods on Saturday on a trail run with Justine. The deerflies were out in force. We were lost so well and good for several hours that I ended up missing both YogaDance and a NIA workshop, unfortunately. (On the bright side, I unintentionally got my long run in, on a beautiful trail no less!)

Reading by the lake. I never, ever get to just swim or to just sit and read. My kids are ages 1 and 3. It will be some time before I can hang out with them near the water and just read. So to do that on Saturday was a real treat. I swam, I read, I dozed off, I swam, I read...

The labyrinth. Labyrinths amuse me. They are so simple and whimsical and yet so meditative. Even if you're not there to meditate, you cannot help but find yourself in a nice little head-place as you wind your way through a labyrinth. Especially if it is one whose "walls" consist of black-eyed Susans.

Four hours of yoga today, before lunch. The first class, before breakfast, was a vigorous class (favorite part: when the instructor, after having us do about a thousand chataranga-upward dog-downward dogs in a row, warned us that we were "about to enter the dark part of the woods" in terms of intensity in the class. He was right. I've blocked it out, what we did, but he was right. It was vigorous.)

YogaDance. You just have to let go of inhibitions and free your mind and move.

Crying. Yes, crying. Have you ever had an orgasm that was just marvelous but left you inexplicably in tears? The sex may have been great, but it triggered some emotional release. Well, I had several such emotional releases (sans sex or orgasm) this weekend in yoga classes. I do recall a few of the triggers. YogaDance really got me, for some reason. Perhaps in part because there were some children there and I was missing mine. But it was more than that.

The yin yoga class. We were in one pose, some kind of hip opener, held there mostly by our own body weight. After about ten minutes the instructor, who was a very funny guy, said, somewhat apologetically, "OK, so the tricky thing about this pose is that there's really no good way to get out of it. Just find your own way, and move slowly." I think it would have been owwww no matter how it was done.

I am still sorting out what I just encountered and how I was transformed. I could have used more time there, of course. It reminded me of my little liberal arts college, lots of people grooving on the same vibe and--when they weren't in class--sitting around outside reading or staring or making music or writing or "solituding."

In any case, I'd go back in an instant. It's a good place, a healing place. It's as healing as you want to let it be.

Marathon Training: The One Sure Thing

2011-07-21T22:13:00.005-04:00

It is 10:13 p.m. and I just got out of the shower and I have yet to eat dinner. My baby will probably wake me at 5:30 a.m. again. But I have to eat, and I'm a little too revved up to go to bed yet.

I am training for a marathon. Thanks mostly to schedule (and very slightly to the heat wave), a lot of my training lately takes place at night, after I put Ben, the baby, to bed. I leave my husband to put Max to bed, and with a kiss goodnight and a wave from the street I am off.

Morning or night, the running is going pretty well so far. I'm doing speed work this time, and that's going nicely. Though it is starting to feel a little bit like a part-time job, I like it. Sticking to the schedule gives me control over one thing in my life, and that helps a lot.

I cannot control my days, for the most part. My work schedule has been a little tentative (the joys of freelancing), my sitter has been up in the air about August until today (today!--and it turns out she's not available for most of the month), I never know when the kids are going to wake up or when Ben's going to have to nap (if he wakes early, he naps early; if he sleeps later, he can make it to midday). I cannot seem to schedule anything in advance. Instead, I'm always tripping over myself trying to get somewhere. I often don't know what day it is or the date or what I'm going to feed the kids for dinner.

But I do know how far I'm supposed to run, and at what pace. That's something I can keep track of. It depends on nothing else except my making time for it. There are no tears, no tantrums, no clinging to me or grabbing my breasts or whining to be picked up and taken to his room for a nap, no asking to go ride his bike around the block while Ben is napping. I just get everything taken care of as best I can and then go run. Or run with the kids if I have to, though pushing 90 pounds of jogging stroller is hard on the speedwork days.

I'm running. And I'm sticking to the training schedule. And I feel really good. I may not know what else the day will bring, but the running? I know what's going on there.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-13T22:59:00.005-04:00

He likes to loop whatever he can find around his neck--
a headlamp, a duck-bill quacky whistle--

and stumble into the kitchen looking for all the world
like some strange bumbling tourist.

[not so wordless, but whatever]

"Good Fun Mom" Reports Back

2011-07-07T23:09:00.006-04:00

Day 1 of Week 2 of no sitter (and a full workload!). Let's review how it's going:

making ice cream: Yeah. Made vegan ice cream. Max was so excited until we tasted it. Hemp milk sucks. I will make real ice cream for him soon so he can taste what it's supposed to be like. It's icy, not creamy. It is vanilla banana chocolate-chip, at least.

beach/lake/pool: Nope. Too daunting on my own with two kids of these ages. We went to a fun water playground last week. Max lost interest early on, after skinning his knee, and wanted to go to the playground part instead. We went to a super-great one today (with shade and bathrooms, can you believe it?). I think my kids spent 7 hours outside in the sun today. Maybe that's too much.

beach/lake/pool, part 2: Tomorrow we go meet Funky Mama Bird for the first time to take our small offspring a'splashing in a pond.

car-free/long bike rides: Score several on this front. We did drive today only because our destination was a few miles away down a very busy road at rush hour, with no shoulder. Trying that with a double bike trailer would have been asking for trouble, at best (I used to bike this road all the time to get to work...even without a bike trailer, I felt I was risking death).

Martha's Vineyard: No. The ferry is really expensive and the trip would not be too much fun for the kids.

What HAS happened:

We spent a lazy morning in the neighbor's kiddie pool. Who needs elaborate plans, really? You just need water and some friends!

Ben has started walking and talking. You know, what else do you do in one week in July? First he was just taking a few steps to get to my SIL's ham sandwich or to jets of water at the water playground, but starting this week I'd say he's a walker. Or an actual toddler. Crikey. He now says "apple" and "dog" and "up" and "wawa" and "bird" and whatever his super-excited word for "kitty" is, which I can't translate to type but definitely understand what he means when he says the word (it helps that he gesticulates madly and bounces up and down and shrieks with glee at the same time, while pointing at the cat), and he can touch your nose if you ask him where a nose is. I'm so proud.

Max borrowed my lip balm Friday while I was trying to work and then I heard, "I painted the sofa with your lip balm, Mommy!" That was right after things were too quiet and I found Ben happily splashing in the toilet with his hands. Ick.

Earlier that day, however, I was cooking and prepping veggies from our farm share and Ben played with a kohlrabi and a turnip forever. He'd taken them from the veggie drawer. He liked them a lot and squealed with glee. Max, meanwhile, was on the porch wearing C's bike shoes and chatting away with some narrative of his own. I got so much done!

But then when it was time for me to work, to actually work for pay for someone else, I put on a neat documentary about the making of fire trucks in the Seagrave Fire Apparatus factory and Max kept insisting I sit next to him to watch. I think he missed the point that the video was to keep him busy while I worked. No, he thought it should be a bonding experience for us (it's a cool video, by the way).

And we cut up paper, defended ourselves from Ben, played a card game (Thomas's Birthday Surprise--thanks, Dad!), had nice talks. I've cooked a fair amount. If I didn't have to work last week, we might even have had a grander time.

Update from week 2: I was totally bitchy today. No one napped (just Ben, on the drive home from the splash park). When we got home I wanted to check email and Max wanted to sit on my lap and I put on a video for him and he wanted me to sit next to him and Ben was crying and overtired and we had 6 hours until an evening birthday party for one of Max's friends and it was 89 degrees in our apartment and I just wanted some downtime, please. So I was not as patient as one would like one's mommy to be, probably. Sorry.

But I don't really have to work this week, so that's good. This morning at the spray park I was thinking, Oh, I should ditch the sitter for the rest of the summer and not work and just play and have outings with the kids! And a mere two hours later I was thinking, Dear god when will she be back I cannot stand this! All it takes is a little whining on a hot day and I'm done with the SAHM thing. It's hard.

The Nanny Forces Me to Become a Good, Fun Mom

2011-07-01T05:50:00.005-04:00

"Remember, I'm not here for the next two weeks," my nanny* said as she left yesterday.

Whoa--what??!? Apparently when I first hired her she'd had this on her calendar but I had failed to notice or remember (also, I thought my current project would be over long before now).

But here we go! If I really kick ass over this holiday weekend and finish up this project, and if I don't have more work from this client, then in the next two weeks I'm going to be the fun-lovin', adventurous stay-at-home mom part of me wants to be. I can stop feeling wistful that we don't have time for all the adventures I want to take the boys on and instead, we can just do them. It helps that the baby has stopped napping entirely (WTF? What one-year-old gives up all naps???), so we won't have to worry about being stuck home for his morning nap (or, you know, any nap, the way he's going!).

So, on the docket, in no particular order:

strawberry picking

bus ride to commuter rail train ride...either out to a farm or to meet Daddy for lunch (I think the bus and train rides will be exciting enough, to be honest)

beach/lake/pool (I'll need to rally another adult for this, because keeping an eye on two non-swimmers is hard enough to do in the bathtub, let alone in open water)

farm trip

making ice cream

long bike rides to play in a different town and get ice cream

Martha's Vineyard (hey, why not? What do we have if not time on our hands to ride a ferry to an island?)

I'd like to add in "visiting my parents," but visiting my father is a big trip that may have to wait; visiting my mother happens a lot and can easily happen during a normal week, anyway; and visiting C's mom is a big trip that we'd need more advanced notice for.

It's funny--I was looking forward to the end of this project so I could get a pedicure, get a haircut, do more yoga,** and take care of some paperwork that keeps getting put aside. But instead, we are going to have some really excellent adventures.

I can't wait.

* "Nanny" sounds so "live-in governess," doesn't it? She's a weekday sitter, three partial days/week. That's all. Three very important, very welcomed days per week. Her arrival calms me immensely. Plus I get tons of work done.

** I'll temporarily have to switch to an early-morning yoga class, which I am sure the late-sleeping C will love, but there is no way I'm giving up yoga for two weeks, and I'm not at the point where I can or will do it here in my living room with Max jumping on my back and the baby climbing onto the dining room table to whack the windows with a--jesus, kid, is that a curtain rod? Where did you get that? Get off the table before you fall!

Like a Parachute on a Fire Plane

2011-06-27T20:26:00.005-04:00

Let's say you only have one small bathroom. And your three-year-old son is in the bath and his father is hanging out with him and the bath is taking FOREVER. And you have your period and really need to change your tampon right this very minute. And you really really need to do it in the bathroom and can't, say, swap out in the bedroom.

You have already explained to your son some days ago, when he noticed your o.b. variety pack on the back of the toilet, that healthy mommies (and other women) bleed once a month if they don't have babies in their tummies. Admittedly there are probably better ways to explain menstruation to preschoolers, but you were caught off guard when he asked.

So anyway, there you are in the bathroom with your husband and son, hoping they continue their conversation about the hatch on your son's plastic fire-fighting plane. You quickly unwrap the new tampon, hoping you can get it in place before--

Too late. He sees it. You chime in something about the fire plane's hatch, but he is focused on one thing.

"What's that, Mommy?"

Your husband possibly snickers.

"It's a tampon."

"Can I see it?"

You freeze for one second before thinking, What the hell, and you finish unwrapping it and you hand it to him. "Sure. Here you go."

Your husband is definitely snickering now. Your son holds the amazing, bright-white object.

"Why don't you see what happens when it gets wet?" you suggest as you grab another one out of the cabinet.

He dips it in the water. It expands instantly. You wash your hands, and as you leave the bathroom they are discussing how it can be like a parachute on the plane.

It's true. It is kind of like a parachute.

You really wouldn't mind having a second bathroom.

Kamikazes and Chocolate Cake: How Not to Eat While Marathon Training

2011-06-24T21:18:00.005-04:00

So, you're training for a marathon? Congratulations! While the right training schedule is important, don't overlook nutrition. It turns out that kamikazes and chocolate cake will not launch you strongly into race training.

Here are some tips in case you're not sure how best to approach a performance diet.

1. Demon Alcohol
Wheeeeee!! It's your friend's 40th birthday and you're going out on the town! Even more exciting, as you haven't been out on the town in about six years. You barely remember how to get to town, in fact. But even if you've gotten your long run out of the way before you head out--instead of facing it mere hours after you stumble home--take it easy on the hooch. If you're a dedicated beer drinker who enjoys an occasional glass of wine, your body won't even know what to do with hooch and all the sweet crap it is mixed with. Kamikazes sure are tasty, it turns out, but just because someone hands you one every time you turn around doesn't mean you should drink it.

If, two nights later, you're out with a friend for a long-scheduled evening out to catch up, once again, you shouldn't feel compelled to finish your half of the bottle of wine, especially if you have barely eaten dinner. (See #2.) Sure, it's very nice wine and you enjoy it, but you just may not feel your freshest when it comes time for tomorrow's early morning run. You may not even get out of bed, in fact, until the kids wake you at 6, and then it is too late. You are mired in children and cannot escape to run.

Drink at your own peril. Or, just plan your nights out better so you aren't hitting the town every other night. If you're like me, you're not 19 anymore. If you are like me, you are pushing 40 and have two very demanding, very small children. You have enough to deal with, with this marathon training, without poisoning yourself.

2. Skipping Dinner (or Breakfast, or Lunch)
Look, I appreciate a busy schedule and a f*ckload of stress. I really do. Trust me. But even if you are too busy and time-pressed and stressed out for a meal, eat something. You may not be eating the chopped salad made from your weekly CSA share, but try to make a healthy choice. Don't just reach for the cake box on the counter or the enormous box of cookies (see #3) just because they're quick and easy. Grab something from the fruit bowl, or keep multigrain pretzels on hand, or ask your spouse to portion leftovers into grab-and-go meals when he or she puts the food away after dinner. (Or do it yourself if you're not trying to get a few more hours of work in as soon as the kids go to bed.)

3. Living on Cake, Cookies, and Possibly Pie
This may be how you got through pregnancy and those super-hungry early breastfeeding months (well, it's how I did). But it's time to stop. Just because you have a leftover birthday cake on the counter (is the baby one already??), plus your husband just bought a 10-pound box of bakery cookies from Whole Foods (why, honey, why?), and you had some kind of breakdown at the store the other night and bought yourself a pint of Tofutti and some chocolate sauce, you don't need to eat this stuff. Like street drugs, they're fun in the moment but really have nothing to commend them for long-term use.* You ate some cake at the birthday party; freeze the rest of it. Make your husband take those cookies to work. Eat the damn Tofutti, but in moderation.

High-sugar foods really won't make you feel awesome.

4. Turning the Ship Around
Even if you are starting your marathon training on a particularly rocky stretch of nutritional coastline, it's not too late to change course. After all, you just got what, a year's worth? of nights-on-the-town out of your system, so you can resume being a fairly sober homebody again. The sweets will all be gone soon (right? And I don't mean because you ate them--but if you did, whatever. Forgive and forget and move on). As for skipping meals, well, reduce your stress level. Carve a little more time into your day for breakfast or dinner. If your work schedule is as wacky as mine, try to figure out how and when and where to have lunch.

Also, it helps to take a little time each day or week to prep food so you have healthy snacks at hand and healthy meals are easy to make. Wash and cut up those vegetables; cut up some fruit. Prepare a large salad and keep it in the fridge, with dressing nearby. Stash some whole-grain pretzels and baby carrots in your work bag.

While much of marathon training is mental, a hell of a lot depends on your body. Treat your body well, and it will treat you well.

* or so I've read.

Play Doh Fun Factory!

2011-06-22T20:47:00.007-04:00

Max went back to his grandmother's house for another sleepover. Last week he wanted to stay a second night, which proved just a wee bit too long (judging by his desire to get into the car, in his pajamas, breakfast in hand instead of at the table, at 6:30 a.m. to head straight home). This time, I promised that he'd sleep over just one night, then Ben and I would drive down the next day and be there by lunchtime and we'd all have a sleepover. He liked that idea.

My brother called my mother this morning. Upon learning that Max was here, my stunned brother asked, "He's still there??" thinking Max was still here from last week. Hah. He's not that well-adjusted!

So Ben and I drove down today, since our sitter is not available today/tomorrow and I thought, "Hey, why not a fun trip?" and then work exploded and "fun trip" turned into "Please god maybe my mom can watch them while I meet this new impossible deadline."

Again, hah. Max was pretty excited to see me. Adventures with Grandmother apparently pale in comparison to jumping on Mommy when she's at her computer. Especially since I'm willing to put the Mac aside and play and snuggle. My mom has a Play Doh Fun Factory! That is SO much more fun than playing fireman!! So yeah, I ditched work to play with my 3-year-old, who is growing up way too fast. If he wants me to play with him at his grandmother's house so that the visit is extra fun for him, who am I to say no? I know that far too often, back home, I tell him to wait because I am working. Here, I won't do it.

Of course, tomorrow I may just vanish myself to a local coffee shop for a couple of hours to really get stuff done. I also have to run 6 miles, drive us back to Boston, feed both kids dinner, and somehow work several more hours sometime in there, too.

I can do it!

Max Goes Away...Without Me

2011-06-13T21:58:00.005-04:00

My baby went off by himself today, for a big-boy sleepover at his grandmother's house. My mom's house. I managed not to cry as they drove away. Max, of course, was tremendously excited. He has been for weeks.

I miss him terribly. I was like a lost dog all afternoon. I'd think, "Oh, I have to go pick him up at 5:30!" and then I'd remember he wasn't at daycare, he was away for the night.

I finally took Ben out to walk around the neighborhood and hang out with Max's friends' parents and caregivers, under the guise of giving Ben some social time. In truth, I was the lonely one.*

But Max? After lunch, my mother reports, when she asked what he'd like to do for the afternoon, he asked, "Do they have a library here?" A library. He's at the beach, surrounded by toys and playgrounds and fishing boats, and he wants to go to the library. She explained that it was closed on Mondays (and then, thanks to his constant "Why?", had to explain about municipal budgets and such). Then they went out and had all sorts of adventures.

She was driving too slowly for his taste, at one point, and he asked her about it. "Why are you driving slowly, Grandmother?" She told him she was driving the speed limit and though it might seem slow, it was just the speed limit. He persisted. "Do you have a throttle?" She said she wasn't sure. "They are good to have," he said.

When she bought him a shirt, he wanted her to get one for his baby brother. He later told her he wanted to come back with just Ben, not Mommy or Daddy. (Of course, at dinner he asked, "When do I get to go home?" as if he were some kind of hostage--but he said it very matter-of-factly, not sad or distressed.)

I'm really glad he's having such a great time and bonding with his grandmother. These are the kinds of memories that are so important. And I'm really glad he's so comfortable and well-adjusted. Plus, I know that down the line, having him and Ben be able to go to my mom's for a night or the weekend will be great.

But well, I miss him. Our house is too quiet. Bedtime was too easy with just Ben. The afternoon and evening were strange. I want to gather my little boy in my arms and hold him and snuggle him and smell him.

* I did have tons of fun with just Ben this afternoon. He likes to attack me, shrieking with laughter, when I lie on the floor. He also stands now and took a few steps yesterday. It was nice to have some time with just him. But I feel wistful with Max gone. I will admit it.

"It Didn't Hurt Him"

2011-06-08T20:51:00.009-04:00

"Max, why is Ben crying?" I'd just stepped away from my nicely-playing-together boys to go unlock the downstairs door for my husband. A sudden piercing wail had me sprinting up back the stairs.

Max was backing away, trying to get some distance between himself and Ben, clutching a small ball, hiding his face behind his hands--something he only does when he knows he has deliberately done something wrong. "I just poked him a little bit. But it didn't hurt him," he said.

Right.

"Where did you poke him?" I said, scooping up Ben, who was still wailing.

Max covered his face again. "Just in the eye."

Just in the eye. It was easy enough to tell which one: Ben's left eye was watering and the lid/brow area was reddened. It turned out to be fine, but jeez, you 'd think at some point I could leave these two alone together for a minute!

I can't. Max will "helpfully" push Ben out of the bathroom with his feet, sing-songing, "No babies in the bathroom!" He will shove Ben's hands away when Ben's using the couch to hold onto to stand up. He'll roughly yank toys away from Ben.

In short, he's a big brother, and he is three years old...not exactly babysitter material just yet. Generally they play fine together, but there's a reason I never do laundry (2 flights down)--or much else--when they're both home and awake.

One day Ben will be safer...or big enough to defend himself. Right?

My Cups Runneth Under

2011-06-04T20:26:00.008-04:00

When I was a child, staring at the cover of National Geographic with the bare-from-the-waist-up women, their breasts practically down to their knees, holding children and surrounded by children and just looking calmly at the camera, I never imagined that A-cup breasts could sag like that.

That's right. A-cups.

My body is back where it was pre-baby, maybe a little lighter, plus some lingering hip problems. Also, I swear my breasts used to be higher. Like, several inches higher. I've been having "bra issues" (as in, my old, cheap bras don't really fit right anymore and needed some replacements). Rather than go somewhere real and get properly fitted and such, which would take time, dammit, I popped into Target today between toddler parties. That's right: we attended not one but two birthday parties for three-year-olds today, at the same indoor playspace. With one hour off in between parties. What does one do with a spare hour 20 minutes from home in an industrial/commercial area, a preschooler in tow? One runs errands at Target.*

I chose a few shirts and bras and Max and I went into the dressing room. He watched me try things on.

"Is that comfortable?" he asked, a look of kindly concern on his face.

"Why, yes, it is," I said. "It's pretty comfortable."

"Then we should buy it and take it home," he said. Calmly. Not in a "Let's hurry up and get the hell out of here" way but in a reasonable, logical, "That's what you do when something fits" kind of way. He's three.

"You're right," I said.

He was very patient as I tried on various bras before I came to a horrible conclusion: The B-cups weren't fitting because I didn't have enough to fill them. I'd known my lactational heyday was over when my favorite running tank with the built-in bra was once again supportive enough to wear on its own, instead of my having to rely on a beefy, rock-solid running bra. But I didn't think I'd shrunk quite this much.

"Let's just go see if we can find this in a different size," I said, "and then it will be time to go to the next party."

It's kind of shocking how calm and patient a three-year-old can be while shopping with his mother on a beautiful Saturday when he's overtired and overstimulated and waiting to go to another birthday party.

I found the bra I liked in a A-cup. That's right, an A-cup. Apparently that is my new size. I'm still telling myself it's a manufacturing fluke, and that I really ought to go get measured and get some good-quality bras. It's not just that the Target bras never fit well. It's that my boobs have grown two humans and deserve some kind support. Plus, no one looks hot in an ill-fitting bra.

So we came home after all the parties and I mentioned to my husband that I went to Target. "And you will not believe what my bra cup size is now!" I said.

"A," he said casually, not looking up from his magazine.

What the hell??!? Is it really that obvious from just looking at me? Could you tell just from reading my blog that I'm incredibly small-breasted? So be it. I am here to say that A-cup breasts can indeed sag.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

* OK, some moms would have found local green space--a quiet field, or what have you--in which to chill out with their children between parties. This crossed my mind. It really did. But I had stuff to return to Target, and I am having serious shirt issues lately. I know I should not shop at Target, but lately convenience trumps politics, sometimes. For me at least. Lately. Sorry.

A Cold Dose of Reality

2011-05-29T21:56:00.004-04:00

Toddler [spying lights flashing on a towtruck/flatbed that is carrying a car on the highway]: Mommy! What's that?

Me: It's a flatbed, carrying a car.

Toddler: Why?

Me [thinking of every possible reason a car might break down]: Well, perhaps the car blew a gasket. Or threw a piston. Or a hose broke. Or maybe the radiator is leaking. It could be that the engine seized, or a bearing is bad and the car is unsafe to drive, or maybe an axle broke, or there's a problem with a tie rod. Maybe there's something wrong with the transmission. Or...[turning to husband] Can you think of any other reasons the car might not be working?

Husband: Maybe the car runs just fine but it's getting repossessed for nonpayment.

Toddler: .....

Me: .....

Husband: In this economy, it's not an unlikely scenario.

Me: [sigh]

Toddler: [remains silent; doesn't even ask "Why?"]

That Greener, Greener Grass

2011-05-25T20:45:00.005-04:00

Tomorrow I could take Max to the Lexington Public Works Day (children's activities include "viewing and sitting in equipment, operating a surveyor’s transit, using a metal detector, exploring the growth cycle of trees, using a Big Belly trash compactor, and backyard composting"), take him to the aquarium with a friend (which Ben would REALLY love), or leave them with the sitter for the morning while I work (no, she is not available in the afternoon).

Alas, I feel like I made a deal with the devil. I'm happy to be working again, but I'm reluctant to give up on our fun adventures. It doesn't seem fair. I know that working parents across the world don't get to take their kids on weekday adventures, and everyone survives, but I was kind of looking forward to tomorrow, especially as work has been slow this week. Also we had to miss out on a fabulous touch-a-truck event on Sunday due to Max's birthday party (you can't well have the birthday boy skip his own party, right?).

But tomorrow. Do I get up at 4 a.m. and crank it out to get the work done, so we can have our day's adventures? Do I give up and work? Do I try to make it up to him next time? Do I remind myself that Ben would be napping, anyway, and we'd probably have to miss either event, anyway, due to the constraints of nap and lunchtime?

Bah. The grass is always greener, isn't it?

'What I Want On My Birthday Cake"

2011-05-20T23:35:00.004-04:00

"Mommy. On my cake I want strawberries."

Max turns 3 soon. I'm making his cake, but today he told me he wants to go pick it out.

"But I'm making it! Remember, you said you wanted a chocolate cake and white icing? So now you want a chocolate cake with white icing and strawberries on it?"

"Yeah. Strawberries and chocolate cake and white icing and strawberry icing and butter and—what’s that?" He points to a box of confectioner's sugar.

"That's sugar, to make the icing--"

"Yeah, some of that, and"—he gestures to the box of teething biscuits for Ben—"some of those. OK, Mommy? I want these on my cake, see?"

"OK. You want a chocolate cake with white icing and strawberries on it."

"Yeah. And also some of these." He holds up the box of teething biscuits.

The teething biscuits are Earth's Best Organic Barley. Ben doesn't like them much. None of us do. I'd envisioned trying to make Max's cake in the shape of a police car or fire truck, maybe building some kind of tow truck with pretzels....but if he wants it decorated with strawberries and teething biscuits, I will be more than happy to oblige.

Shoveling It On

2011-05-19T21:34:00.005-04:00

In case you've been wondering where I've been lately, I got a job. 20 hours a week or so. That may not seem like a lot, but I also started a class. That, too, may not seem like a big deal, until we run the numbers.

Let's say your usual workday is from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. If both kids nap and their naps overlap enough, you might get a 45-minute break in the afternoon. OK.

Then add to that 20 hours a week of deadline-driven work, with lots of emails and such in between your actual worky stuff. Still with me?

Also, begin a boot-camp style writing class. You will tell your kids "Just a minute" a lot; you'll fill your coffee mug, hassle your husband out of bed, and hand him a baby as you retreat to your desk, hoping to get some work done before he has to get ready for work. You try to get up extra early, but your snuggling preschooler insists on getting up with you and then insists that you to play with him (also, he's a total bear if he gets up too early). You occasionally rely on videos and have found your baby eating things he probably shouldn't be. Running takes a backseat; so does sleep; and the dinners you're cooking for your family kind of suck.

Oh, because did I mention there was no babysitter? Right. I'd been in such denial about our wonderful sitter's impending departure for the summer that I had not found a replacement. No one could replace her.

But someone had to. My first week was...challenging.

So with all my newfound spare time, I interviewed many people, online and in person, and will spare you the details. I found someone who is so heartbreakingly excellent I'm beside myself with relief. She took the kids to the library today and picked out better books than I ever managed to find; she drew elaborate pictures with Max. Ben thinks she's wonderful and didn't mind playing with her while I was still home, working--he knew I was home but didn't care! (Or, you know, maybe it's not that she's wonderful and he's well-adjusted; maybe, instead, he has serious attachment issues to me.)

So now I have a sitter, which helps a mighty whole hell of a lot. The only problem is that she's not available all the time, which would be great. Of course now I'm fast-forwarding to all the time I'll miss with my children and all the adventures and outings we won't have because they'll be having those adventures with the sitter instead of me. *sigh*

There is no winning, is there?

I am very happy to be working again and very happy to be writing hard for this class. Of course I also have two birthday parties to plan in the next three weeks (the lads are turning 1 and 3!), one camping trip, one family weekend, and my head is spinning just a little tiny bit.

I shall now return to work, even though I'd rather drink a beer and read and go to bed.

What I Do While You're Playing Frisbee

2011-05-13T20:35:00.006-04:00

It's one of those beautiful spring evenings on which I sit home alone while C plays Ultimate Frisbee with an old girlfriend.

It's not really as bad as it sounds. C had talked me into joining a Frisbee team with him (Grand Masters, if you will--it means "Old People" in Frisbee lingo) as a weekly date night. He loves Frisbee. He loves Frisbee like I love trail running and The New Yorker and beer.

Despite my studious attempt at Learning League, some years ago, plus a season on a low-level team of which C was captain, I'm terrible. Terrible. I don't catch well, my throwing is crapshoot, and I have so much contact with other players I'd do better on a rugby team. Contact isn't really allowed in Ultimate Frisbee, but I think I get away with it because they all recognize how terrible I am.

I'm so terrible, in fact, that my teammates don't bother giving me tips. They save those for other new (male) players and instead either ignore me or mumble a team-building "nice job" if one of their supremely accurate throws somehow lands in my hands.

But I can run. I can run back and forth on the field like nobody's business, and I stick to my mark like glue (usually). I may totally lack field sense and handling skills, but I like the running part.

Despite all the running, I haven't really enjoyed Frisbee this season. Maybe it's because everyone else in the league has been playing for at least 20 years and is therefore incredibly good.

Maybe it's because I know how badly they need women to play--so badly that they will bend the rules to allow a total newbie underage player on the team (not me--I made the 35+ cut with years and wrinkles to spare). See, there's this rule that each team must have at least two women on it. Inclusive as the league wants to be, I know I'm only there for the sheer fact that I'm a woman. They don't expect anything from me. That's demoralizing.

Maybe it's because I keep getting injured. My hamstrings were seizing up, then my post-surgical knee got pissed off. All those quick starts, sudden stops, and fast turns (on unforgiving turf, I might add) would be hard on a healthy knee, but that shit is downright rude to a knee that is three cuts short of a full meniscus. Last week, one point into the game, I tore a quadricep muscle. I tried to keep playing but couldn't run. And if running's my only contribution to the game, I was useless. I left, met a friend for a beer (see "Interests," above; plus we had a sitter already, you know?), and quit the team a few days later.

I refuse to destroy my legs for this date-night activity, fun as it is. My heart's not in it. I have a marathon to run this fall. I can't ruin myself like this. If I'm going to get hurt, I'd rather go down on a dirty trail, tangled up in my mountain bike, than on a turf field with a bunch of old guys throwing a disc (no offense, teammates, but you dogs are aged).

So I'm home while C plays. She's not really an old girlfriend, just a friend he's known forever through Ultimate Frisbee. She is an amazing player, perhaps better than he, and she's organized teams and leagues and what-have-you, indicating a level of interest in Frisbee that's about 1000 million times what mine ever will be.

But that's OK. I'm not actually jealous. I'm way cuter. Plus C and I are, you know, married. Plus, of course, I get to stay home with The New Yorker and some cold IPA,* and tomorrow I'll go for a run.** Life is good.

* Ha. As if. I have to work tonight, dammit.
** Yes, I can run. Not at top speed, and not on trails just yet, but I can do a moderately-paced road run of moderate mileage. Thank god.

Poop Trilogy

2011-05-12T13:10:00.000-04:00

[Apologies to Facebook friends who have already seen some or all of these.]

I. The Voice of Experience
Toddler (at dinner table): I have to poop!
Mother: OK. Do you need help?
Toddler: No thanks. I've been doing this for years.

II. Stealth Drop
Toddler: I have to poop. Don't recognize me.
Mother: What?
Toddler: Don't recognize me in the potty!

III. Idioms
Mother: Listen, you, let's go snuggle!
Toddler: Listen, you, let's go poop!
Mother: Do you have to poop?
Toddler: No. That's just an expression.

Talkin' About the Tough Stuff

2011-05-08T21:05:00.006-04:00

"Where's E___'s mommy?" Max asked me. He was sitting on my lap in the kitchen, close to bedtime. E___ is our neighbor; a few months older than Max, the boys have thus far grown up together, riding bikes and trikes around the neighborhood, splashing in puddles, going on hikes and farm visits, playing in sprinkler on hot summer afternoons. It was only to share a sled with E___ that Max was even willing to get into a sled last winter; it is E___ to whom Max shouts "Hi!" out our window, unless we're outside and E___ is the one shouting happily from his window.

In short, they're friends, as much as three-year-olds can be.

E___ doesn't have a mommy. He has two daddies. But he obviously had a mommy at some point, or else he wouldn't exist. He didn't just hatch.*

I took a deep breath.

"Well," I began, "E____ doesn't really have a mommy." I paused. I knew the general story of how E____'s adoption. "His mommy knew she couldn't keep E____ and take care of him, so she found a family who would. And E____'s daddies knew that they wanted a baby, and they knew they would love him and take very good care of him and give him a great life. So E____'s daddies and the mother found each other and she knew that they would be the perfect family for him. So after the baby came out of her tummy, she gave him to E____'s daddies, because she knew that they would love him and give him a great life. And they are."

I felt really uncomfortable trying to explain how a birth mother could give up her child without freaking Max out that a mommy could just give away her baby. I hoped I was explaining this well.

"So where is his mommy?" he persisted.

"E___ doesn't have a mommy. He has two daddies. He has a birth mother, but not exactly a mommy." I felt like I was digging a hole.

"What's a birth mother?"

Oh boy.

"A birth mother is a woman who has a baby but gives it to someone else to love and to raise. I mean, a birth mother can also be a mommy." I was starting to stumble.

Max stared at me. "But are you my mommy?"

"Yes, honey, of course. And I'm your birth mother, because I gave birth to you. But I'm also your mommy."

Was I making any sense?

"Some families have a mommy and a daddy," I said. This was the easy part! Let's get away from the whole "mother giving up her baby" thing, please! "And some families have two daddies, like E____'s family. And some families have two mommies, like your friend A____. Some families have only one mommy and no daddy. Some families have one daddy and no mommy. There are all kinds of families!"

C came up from the basement. He'd caught some of the conversation.

"I just had to explain adoption to Max," I said.

"Sounds like someone's really good at stalling his bedtime," he said. Later, he told me, "You could have just answered, 'I don't know.'"

"But that's not true," I said. "I do know."

"He asked where E____'s mommy is. And you don't know for sure where she is, so you could have honestly said you didn't know."

"I suppose. But I think if he asked where E____'s mommy was and I said I didn't know, then he might think that mommies can just vanish and no one knows where they go. I didn't want him to think that mommies can just go away like that," I said.

In any case, we got through that little minefield. I'm sure there might be better ways to explain adoption, and I'm sure there will be more questions down the line as Max realizes that some of his friends look nothing like their parents, but we'll continue to stick with honest answers and to make it clear that families are made of love.

And then today, I was reading The New York Times, and there was an article about Chaz (formerly Chastity) Bono ("The Reluctant Transgender Role Model"). The article included a few pictures: toddler Chastity with her parents, Chaz post-sex-change with his girlfriend, Chaz with his mother.

"Mommy, who's that?" Max asked, peering over my shoulder, pointing to young Chastity.

Oh, hey, am I really going to have to explain transgenderism to my two-year-old today? This might prove even more confusing than adoption!

I told him who the girl in the picture was, and I told him who the other people whom he pointed to were (Cher, Sonny, and "I don't know" when he pointed to the Lord & Taylor model on the next page). I was ready to try to explain how the man in the other picture was the same person as the little girl, but Max was pointing to the model's sunglasses and saying how they were just like mine. ("Yes, yes they are! Isn't that funny? They are just like mine, sweety!")

And then he went back to his fire truck, and my shoulders relaxed just a little bit. I have zero problem with my child knowing about transgenderism, but I'm not sure I can explain it in a way that is not confusing to a person who is just figuring out "self" and "identity" and starting to fall into certain gender patterns. Already he plays differently with girls than he does with boys.

I will always try my best to explain things as clearly and honestly as possible and to let him know that there are all kinds of people and all sorts of expressions of self, and that as long as your expression of self doesn't hurt anyone else or yourself, it's totally OK.

But I don't mind if the toughest questions I have to answer in the near future involve backhoes and cranes and ladder trucks and steamrollers....and the endless "Why?"

* I probably SHOULD have said simply, "He doesn't have a mommy; he has two daddies" and left it at that. But he accompanied me on all my midwife appointments and knows that babies come from a mommy's (big) tummy--not a man's tummy, but a woman's. So I thought it would be too confusing to simply avoid the biology part of it all and just pretend that E___ had hatched or something. I mean, babies come from somewhere, right? But yeah, maybe I should have just said he doesn't have a mommy. I don't know.

What the Baby Ate for Dinner

2011-05-08T20:43:00.004-04:00

half a jar of green beans and rice
part of a jar of beef and vegetable pilaf
some baked yam wedges
several slices of pear
a chunk of rosemary boule
a few pieces of penne with spinach, onion, and cannellini beans
one and a half grilled chicken thighs (I kid you not--he pulled the second one out of my hand)
oat milk
a few whole green beans
a sliver of grilled turnip
more pear
cranberries and raisins
half a vanilla wafer
6 ounces of formula
10 minutes of breastmilk/nursing

And this is right after he ate some pretzels and kale puffs at the playground. It's a wonder he didn't puke.

Why We Don't Get Invited to Subsequent Picnics

2011-05-06T15:00:00.005-04:00

My neighbor Heather just invited me to join her and some friends for a picnic by the river. Heather's baby is about 10 weeks old. We've been trying to go for a walk together forever, but today was the first time we actually managed to meet up.

I found Heather and her friend in the grass. They, of course, had brought large picnic blankets. I had rolled up a small stroller throw and stuffed it into my diaper bag. They sat near the water, and of course Ben kept crawling across their blankets and into the grass toward the river. One or the other of them would grab his leg until I finally sat between them to block his path.

I know I could swim, if only they'd let me...

The other woman's baby was even younger than Heather's. I felt like quite the old mom of the group--the old, picnic-incompetent mom. The other women had brought food to share. I had merely brought a small salad and a few leftover pretzels from Max's snack bag. Ben crawled right over a package of cookies (only smashing a few) to get to a box of strawberries. Heather's friend said he could have some. I gave him one. He took a bite and then dragged it clear from one end of her blanket to the other, leaving a trail of strawberry mash. He sat and ate some more, mashing up what was left and then leaving bits of mashed berry on the cookie package, the blanket, my ankle.

Then he got interested in the babies. I pried him away and he sat quietly for a minute. Heather answered a phone call. I talked to the other mother. Ben grabbed Heather's sandwich while she wasn't looking and began beating her leg with it. She hung up the phone. "Is that my sandwich?" she asked, laughing. Ben took a bite and waved it around. He held it with both hands. He held it with one hand and waved it again. It was a pretty sorry-looking sandwich at this point, and Heather assured me she did not want it back.

I got the sandwich away from Ben anyway, because he was smearing it everywhere. It was a peanut-butter sandwich (and yes, he's had peanut butter; both my kids had it starting at 9 or 10 months of age, and yes, studies show that delaying things like peanuts doesn't seem to have any effect on allergies) and he had thick gobs of it on his hands. Before I could stop him, he put his hands on Heather's pants. Heather's nice white pants. Oops.

I offered him the blueberry pancake I'd brought. He crumbled it into pieces, smearing the blueberries into Heather's picnic blanket. She didn't seem to mind.

Heather's other friend showed up with a small bag of apples and granola bars. She handed her infant daughter an apple to play with. Ben crawled over and took the apple from the baby. The woman gave her baby another apple, telling Ben he could keep the one he'd taken. He crawled back to me and started eating it.

Meanwhile, the same woman took out a granola bar. After she'd eaten about half of it, Ben dropped his apple and crawled over to relieve her of the rest of the bar. "Oh, you want this?" she asked with surprise. "You can have it!"

"I swear I fed him lunch before we came out here," I said. I had, too: leftover steak, chicken, carrots, broccoli, granola, and graham crackers.

"Sure you did," said Heather, grinning.

Ben carried the bar back to me and sat on my lap, eating it and scattering grains and seeds everywhere.

Maybe food just tastes better when it's pilfered. Or maybe I should stop feeding him things like chicken and carrots and just let him loose in the kitchen. I mean, he's almost a year old. He can obviously fend for himself pretty well.

Drinking Beer on Park Benches

2011-05-03T22:00:00.004-04:00

"Mommy, don't go. Stay with me," Max begged. We were lying together on his mattress on the floor at my dad's house. It was the last night of our visit. His fever was finally gone.

"Honey, I'm just going out for a little while. I'll be home soon. Afi* will be here with you, and Ben, too."

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm just meeting some friends for a beer," I said.

"Are you going to have a meal?" he asked.

"A meal? No, I had dinner with you and Ben and Afi, remember? I'm just going to have a beer."

"Why are you going to have a beer? Who are you going with? Don't go," he said.

"I'm meeting some friends. We're just going to have a beer together," I told him.

"Why?"

"Well," I explained, "Sometimes when grownups get together in the evening, they have a beer. Or they each have a beer, I mean. You know when you go meet your friends at the playground and you play and then you might relax on the bench and have a snack? Well, it's like that."

"Are you going to the playground?" he asked. He looked confused.

"No, honey, I am meeting them at a cafe."

"Isn't it dark at the playground? Can we go there at night?"

"No, honey. We can't go to the playground at night. It's dark, and we're not allowed to be there after dark."

"Why not?"

"We're just not allowed. It's not always safe. Plus, the kids should be home in bed." It was getting late. "I have to go now, honey."

"No, don't go! Are you going to have a beer?"

"Yes. I'm just going for a little while."

"Are you going to sit on the bench?" Clearly he was still thinking about the park.

"No, I'm not going to sit on the bench. I'm not going to the playground. I'm going to a cafe. To meet my friends."

"Why you not going to the playground?" he asked.

"Well, we're not allowed to drink beer--you know, honey, it's really time for you to be sleeping. Would you like Afi to come in and tell you stories?"

Not only was it getting late, but he should realize that I'm far too old to be hiding out at the playground after dark, drinking beer. That was so high school for me, you know? I'm past that now. Plus, I can legally buy beer and drink it in a restaurant or bar now.

* "Afi" is the Icelandic word for "grandfather." Thus my son calls my father "Afi."