Heed My Words

To any parents who are planning to move their child from a crib to a Big Girl or Big Boy bed:

In order to glamorize many of the wonderful attributes of big beds versus cribs, such as the existence of pillows, do not–I repeat do not–incorporate pillow fluffing into your child’s bedtime ritual.

Why, you ask?

Well, depending on the child’s tenacity in the excuses-to-stay-up arena, this could turn into a task you are called upon to do several times at nap time and night time.

And if you can imagine such a thing, the requests–annoying as they are in and of themselves–are made exceedingly more malodorous due to the way they are typically expressed.

“FLUFF MY PILLOW, MAMA! Fluff. My. PILLOOOOOOW!”

Unless of course, you enjoy feeling more like your child’s indentured servant than you perhaps already do. Then by all means, develop a robust and complex pillow fluffing tradition.

Signed,
Kate’s Personal Pillow Fluffer

Turns out, we have a baby

It was bound to happen. Four months into her existence with us, it finally feels like we have a baby. Which is to say, we’re incredibly sleep deprived.

Today I took off Paige’s socks and put them in the diaper pail. (God knows where the dirty diaper will turn up.) And in the car this morning I had to do a panicked check to make sure both girls were there and strapped in, not forgotten on the sidewalk. I’m not sure, but I think I brushed my teeth.

This afternoon when Kate cruelly refused to nap, I had her play the “Mama is your baby who you have to put to sleep in your bed” game. Hey, it wasn’t what I’d call a legitimate nap, but it did afford me a few horizontal minutes, even if the blankets were wrenched off repeatedly to rearrange the teddy bear that Mama-Kate wedged under my arm.

I’m amazed that Mark is functioning intelligently at his office. I can only hope that he’s locked himself in a bathroom stall to catch a few Zs.

Speaking of which, I hereby award the Co-Parenting Merit Badge to my charming and sleepy husband. In some dumb show we were watching last night a woman said. “Marry someone who loves you a little more than you love them.” Poppycock. Marry someone who is willing to do his share of middle-of-the-night baby soothing when he could be tucked in complaining that he needs his sleep for work, and pointing out that he’s not lactating anyway. (Don’t get any big ideas, sweetheart.)

Of course, I brought this all upon myself when I was in the midst of one of my Hallmark Moments of Parental Gratitude yesterday. Something or other made me express to Mark how thankful I am that the girls are happy and healthy. And I think I might have foolishly tacked onto that something about “I’ll take all the sleep deprivation in the world as long as yadda yadda yadda…” I don’t even want to type the sentiment for fear it will reinforce it.

Who knew I could be so powerful that by mere mention I could bring something on?

I intend to spend the remainer of the day–assuming I’m coherent enough to do so–chanting incantations that pair “healthy happy children” with “good sleepers.”

Wish me luck. Or at least a good long stretch of sleep tonight.

Three is a Magic Number

Okay, so I was a bit off when I projected that, in my recent spate of connecting with people I’ve long fallen out of touch with, it would be Miss Vermette, my crotchety second grade teacher, who’d be the next person I’d stumble across. In fact, the person is Randy Williams, a hilarious fabulous fellow from my junior year abroad program. And Randy’s nothing like Miss Vermette!

So at Kenyon I was an English major. Which is kind of what one does at Kenyon. Go to “the hill” and read the books, and write the papers. And as such, the canonical junior year abroad program was to some British university an hour’s train ride from London, the name of which I can’t even begin to remember.

Getting into this program was something only a select few of us lit junkies had the privilege of doing. I remember when I got in (see how I casually mention how totally smart and cool I was then?) random people I didn’t even know would come up to me on Middle Path (don’t even ask) and congratulate me.

So wasn’t everyone shocked and dismayed when I decided to blow off the hallowed halls of lit-dom to craft a junior year program that included–mon Dieu!–France. This, as an English major, was a wild act of rebellion. But heck, I decided to do the other half of the year in London, just to make my homies happy. Oh, and to do the necessary coursework to fulfill my major’s requirements and, er, graduate.

What’s funny is, no one ever said no to that other program, so by being accepted into it I made it onto all these mailing lists and never was removed from them. Last year I even got an invitation for a reunion of all the Blah-Dee-Blah U attendees. (I didn’t go to that either.)

Okay, so my France program took place in Nantes for the summer, then there was a super weird and random artist’s stage in Rodez (rural southern Nowheresville), and then the fall semester in none other than Gay Paree. The program was a joint one between Kenyon and Earlham College which is somewhere in Indiana. (I’m scraping off rust flack from my brain to remember all this, mind you.)

Earlham hosted an orientation weekend for the 20? students going, since a prof from there was heading up the trip that year. So the Kenyon students drove over to this guy’s house where we all camped out for a night (or two?) and essentially set ground rules, did trust falls, and were awoken from our sleeping bags at an ungodly hour by the prof blasting classical music and announcing in his horrendous French accent, “Bon matin! Nous commencons la jour!” If you’ve never heard the French language, read that sentence in English while jutting your jaw forward and over-enunciating each syllable and you’ll have nailed his accent.

The culture clash between the Kenyon and Earlham kids was grave. The Kenyonites were hopelessly white entitled kids who saw college as four years of boarding school after boarding school. We were apolitical, somewhat lazy, and as painful as it is to admit, likely preppie. The Earlham kids on the other hand were groovy, diverse, socially aware individuals. You know–crunchy.

We were all probably a bit horrified by each other, and they probably had better reason to fear us than the other way around. To wit: Since so many of us were staying with this professor he asked that no one showered–a request my friend Melissa’s sense of hygiene just could not oblige. So while the Earlham posse was following the “if it’s yellow let it mellow” adage with their bathroom usage, Melissa sashayed past a line of people waiting to pee, toweling dry her hair after a nice long hot shower. Utterly obnoxious, but I’ll bet we found it hilarious at the time.

As you’d imagine, the wacky fun of a foreign adventure in which we were forbidden to speak English and were packed together on buses in enriching field trip after enriching field trip  eventually brought us all together. Or at least many of us. Shucks, us kids learned from each other! I don’t know that the Earlham women went so far as to start shaving their armpits by semester’s end, but they were certainly making better stock investments. (Kidding! Wow, wait. I’m still obnoxious!)

But all this blather and chatter and rememberage really is to say that Person Number Three who has woven his way into the game of Kristen Bruno, This is Your Life!, is Randy. Randy who served, by sheer virtue of how fucking funny and sweet and delightful and sassy he is, as a nearly immediate bridge between the two groups. Maybe he wasn’t even an Earlham student, and was a paid actor tasked with bringing us together. At any rate, I remember driving back to Ohio from that orientation excited to have many a milk-out-the-nose laughing session with him in France.

Which it turns out we did. Except substitute wine for milk.

And now, Randy who I never dreamed would crop up in my life again other than in photo albums, posts a little note to THIS VERY BLOG the other day. A little, “Is that you?” kinda note. And yes, by gum, it IS me. So the commenting here thing first off means there are now seven of you reading this. And that his memory is far better than mine since he was able to successfully cyber-stalk me by not only remembering my name, but also that I’m an e-n Kristen. Whereas nearly twenty years after having graduated I’m proud that I remember where I went to college.

To make it all the more fun, Randy lives in the Bay Area. Just blocks away from my sister, Ellen.

See? That’s just the kind of guy he is! You reconnect with him and think, wouldn’t it be great to not only exchange email but to actually see him again, and there he goes making it easy to do so. So a lunch or coffee or night of heavy drinking awaits us soon. Joy!

Funny that in a recent one of my life-analysis phone calls with Mark’s Aunt Terry I mentioned that I was ‘taking resumes’ for new friends. Not that I don’t adore the existing set mind you. (Last thing I want to do is offend my six long-time readers.) It was just that with my new at-home status it seemed I was more available to support a larger friendship infrastructure. (Clearly I still need to learn to talk like I’m not at work.)

And what’s cool is that instead of making new friends–which I have done a bit of recently, sure–I’ve managed to recycle some old ones. How cool is that?

My friends from Earlham would be so proud.

Sleep Walking at Target

So Paigey is starting to laugh! I discovered this the other day when I was doing the old baby routine of big inhale followed by lunge for the cheek or neck and kiss kiss kiss. That one evidently just slays her.

Her laugh is this kind of slow staccato haaa-haaa-haaa. Hopefully it’ll soften and lighten up a bit over time so she doesn’t suffer some horrible Seinfeldian fate. (“So I was out with this really attractive woman the other night. We’re having this great conversation over dinner, but then I said something funny and…”)

Anyway, yesterday while peppering her with a skillion Obsessive Maternal Cheek Kisses and trying to elicit more laughs from her I realized that her cheeks were as sweet and soft as–as normal baby cheeks! No dry leathery skin! No stinky yeast funk rising up from her neck! No scratch scabs criss-crossing her face! All this and no zits too!

Woo hoo! The I-can’t-eat-anything-I-want-to diet seems to be paying off. Even tonight as we were sitting on the couch in the sweet post-kid-bedtime lull, Mark said, “So it’s kind of like Paige is finally our soft sweet baby.”

I’m thrilled. And of course, now I want to eat her.

Though Miss Sweet Cheeks did get me up a couple times last night. Enough to leave me feeling somewhat zombie-like this morning as I showered, dressed and fed her, and bustled Kate off to school (usually Mark’s gig, but he had his every-decade-or-so dentist appointment today).

Usually when Kate goes to school it’s like I’m playing Beat the Clock to see how much I can cram into five toddler-free hours. Achiever that I am, what I can accomplish is generally quite impressive. Though not today.

Every American mother worth her weight in Merona clothing certainly starts most errand outings at Target. Of course half the fun of Targe-ay has historically been my latte stop at the embedded Starbucks. Alas, this morning I tried to satisfy myself with one of their fairly crummy blueberry muffins, with hopes that they aren’t made with any butter. Somehow it didn’t give me the kick I was needing.

At one point after I’d ticked all the things I needed off my list, and after Paige had fallen asleep in the shopping cart, I realized that for some Godforsaken amount of time I’d just been kind of sleepwalking around the store–leaning into the shopping cart like it was some kind of walker and mindlessly making my way up and down the aisles. I have no idea how long I’d been doing this, but when it dawned on my that I should “wake up” and get out of the store I could barely shake myself into action. Getting to the check-out area seemed an epic moon walk away. But as I looked around at the other shopping Mamas I realized I wasn’t alone.

How many other women find themselves wandering the aisles aimlessly at Target, basking in the upbeat merchandising, browsing anonymously in a low-impact with slight feeling-of-accomplishment way? It’s like airplane sleeping–you’re kinda asleep but you can still hear the flight attendants walking through the plane asking everyone, “Pasta or chicken? Pasta or chicken?” 

I’m telling you women like me are EVERYWHERE. Targets around the country are packed with us, haplessly sleep walking until the older kid needs to get picked up from school, and racking up couple-hundred-dollar tabs for non-essential items. If we all didn’t come by our exhaustion honestly and I didn’t love the company as ardently as I do, I’d think Target was pumping some kinda mind-control chemical out through the air ducts.

Outside the store–once I finally swam through a Jello-like haze to get there–I stopped at the nursery to look for a plant for the great one-dollar plant stand I got at a yard sale this weekend. (Plant stand = $1, Fern = $20. Bargain? You decide.)

A woman around my age and her mother walked past me. Glancing down at my cart I heard the older woman say, “Oh look at that fern. Do you remember when I was trying to grow those?”

For some reason it totally reminded me of my mother. She was an avid gardener and I don’t remember if she went through a fern-growing phase, but it’s the kind of thing I could just picture her saying. “Oh those gerananiums. I tried and tried to grow them in that side garden we had.”

The thought came at me in that gut-punching kind of way that you never expect. It’s like when Mother’s Day approaches and you gear yourself up for being all sad that your mother’s not alive and then a few days later you realize that you never even had a Big Sad Moment that day. Then you hear some mom talking to her daughter about her fern-growin’ and you want to sit on the floor at the Target nursery and cry.

There must be something in the air around here–or maybe it’s my mother herself–but Kate has gotten on this kick of saying “I’m calling your Mama,” whenever I unwittingly leave one of the phones in her reach. “What you Mama’s name again?” she’ll ask. “Vicki? I’m calling Vicki. Hello Kristen’s Mama! This is Kate! How are you? Okay, you talk to my Mama now.” Then she hands the phone to me.

The first time this happened Mark was listening from the kitchen and walked into Paige’s room where Kate and I were. His face was all red and covered with tears. Oddly, I wasn’t crying. I was too busy thinking about what I’d say if I really could talk to my mother on the phone. In Kate’s game I’ve said something like, “Hi Mom. I’m here with Kate and Paige and we’re thinking about you!” Then Kate is off busying herself with another toy, or grabs the phone back and starts dialing Tokyo.

The whole thing also has me wondering why Kate asks me about my mother, but hasn’t ever thought to ask where she is, or why she hasn’t met her. Of course I’m avoiding telling her about death until she’s at least 25.

Yesterday when we were in the park having a PB&J picnic, a mother was coercing her kids to get in their stroller. “Come on, Lucy, we have to go home! Grandma’s coming over for lunch.” How jealous-making is that? First off their grandma is alive, secondly she lives close enough to come over for lunch.

It’s not fair. I miss my Mama.

Hi Mom. I have two beautiful daughters now, Kate and Paige. I know you would just love them. Paigey’s had a skin thing but it’s so much better now. And Kate loves school and is such a good big sister. And even though we’re sometimes tired or impatient I think Mark and I are doing a pretty good job with them. And I really really really wish you could come over for lunch some day.

Things I’ve Recently Learned from Kate

1. Circles aren’t round. They’re “ground.”

2. Despite what the American Academy of Pediatrics may think, babies should actually be put to sleep on their tummies, face down. Babies who “aren’t feeling well” should be completely covered–head and all–with several layers of blankets. (Kate practices this technique excessively on her dolls, leaving sleeping baby land mines on the floor all over the house.)

3. Elmo’s last name is McClusky.

Diary of a Dairy Addict

Criminy. Paigey’s skin is still miserable. Or possibly even miserabler than it was.

Given the apocalyptic heat wave we’re having it’s no surprise that she’s got a heat rash on her yeast infection on her eczema. She’s scratched the shit out of all of the above. Oh, and let’s no forget the cradle cap. The poor girl’s just a mess.

Oddly, she’s devoid of a diaper rash, but as I write this I’m sure the most unimaginably vile one is starting to fester in her diaper.

Of course I’d just be undone about the whole dermal nightmare if it weren’t for the fact that coming off of dairy has been my own personal torture. It makes the scene in Train Spotting when the guy gets off heroine look like mild discomfort.

You might think I’m being a bit dramatic. Actually, like any good addict I think I’ve managed the problem well by throwing myself head over heels into another compulsion–stuffing myself silly with soy. I’ve got the vanilla soy milk, the soy ice cream, and the little Tofutti ‘ice cream’ sandwiches. I was also poised to buy some soy cheese, but when Sacha pointed out that the package said “American cheese flavor” I had to toss it back onto the shelf. (Even I have my limits.) It’s neither delicious nor convenient eating this way, but better a shoddy stand-in than none at all.

So today, in the throes of this heat wave as I’m happily packing the beach bag to meet the Friday Mamas at the lake and thinking ruefully of all the poor saps sitting in their cubicles, I look down at the poor red blotchy baby and have a stunning moment of maternal maturity. This baby, thought I, needs to go to the doctor before the heat wave rages on through the weekend, exacerbating her dermal woes and leaving her indistinguishable from Rosemary’s baby. (Or why I imagine Rosemary’s baby to have looked like. Did they ever actually show it in the movie?)

And so, in our squeezed-us-in-appointment, before even taking off her clothes to show him the really awful parts, Dr. Robbins, (a.k.a. our friend Dan) takes one look at smiley crusty Paige and says, “Oh yeah. Wow. So we need to really deal with this.”

And by we, guess who he means? Me.

Like some John Hughes movie I’m sure it’s easy to see where this story line is going. No, the popular boy at school isn’t going to suddenly see past Paige’s pustules and ask her to the prom. The treatment is I’m being told to stop eating soy too. Apparently one-third of the people who have dairy issues eventually develop soy ones too. And it’s looking like Paige is in that unlucky third.

Dan asked me to be exceptionally strict and vigilant about it too. No soy or dairy at all, not even a little butter used for cooking. I’ve got to totally cut it out of my diet altogether, and in ten days take hopefully-improved Paige to a dermatologist, and we’ll take it from there.

The fabulous week-old espresso machine that I got for my birthday will now need to be squirreled away in the basement so I’m not taunted by it. I mean, I don’t want to pull some kind of Kitty Dukakis move by making myself a latte using nail polish remover instead of milk or something. That’d just bring shame upon the whole family.

I know, I know what you’re thinking. The poor baby is suffering a horrible bodily pestilence and all I can think about is myself. But really, I do feel sorry for both of us.

Now poor Paigey now has a second prescription funk-fighter that’s steroidal. Three times a day I’m coating her with two different stinky creams that are probably one-part nuclear waste.  You try to be all healthy and groovy and organic, then you have to use something like that on your sweet little infant. Steroids! She’ll be in a ‘roid rage throwing punches at innocents in a bar before you know it. (Hopefully she won’t develop that ridge across her eyebrows that looks all Cro-Magnon.)

Okay, Kate’s awake and we’re off to run through the sprinkler. Hopefully I’ll wash away my bad attitude while I’m at it. 

Sweet Solitude

When I was an editorial slave at a health magazine in New York ages and ages ago probably long before you were even born, I got to go on a couple amazing press junkets. One was a cruise through the Caribbean.

Cunard was trying to appeal to a younger demographic by billing the typical cruise–gambling, midnight gut-busting all-you-can-hork buffets, and oldsters bobbing in the pool like some scene from Cocoon–as some sporty excursion-based boat trip with a healthy menu and lots of other young active folks who can stay up late without having to modulate their pacemakers.

So here we were–about a dozen health writers in our twenties, mostly from New York–all feeling very cynical that the cruise would offer anything than overcooked food drowned in cream sauces (it didn’t) and all very smug that, starving journalists that we were, we were able to cruise around the Caribbean eating overcooked food drowned in cream sauces for free.

We flew from New York to Florida and then to Peurto Rico where the cruise ship was docked. Rather where she was docked. (I love any excuse to call a boat “she,” don’t you?) In Puerto Rico we had some time to kill so the turbo-chipper PR gal who was chaperoning us in a desperate attempt to ensure we were ga-ga over all things Cunard, took us to a little outdoor bar on the beach.

It was warm. It was sunny. There was no traffic, towering concrete buildings, burnt peanut smells from sidewalk vendors, or homeless men sleeping in the gutter. It was quiet, except for some tropically music playing on some crappy stereo. Manhattan and all its smells, sounds and stresses was worlds away.

But as they say, you can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can’t–well, you know the saying.

Let’s just say that the service at this little cantina wasn’t exactly snappy. And although everything about this setting would have any other mortal content–happy even–our group was collectively busting a neck vein with stress. “Where the hell are our drinks?” one guy groused. “What in fuck’s name happened to our waiter?” someone else demanded. “This is totally unacceptable. They’ve got to be kidding if they expect a tip after this.” (I happen to have committed these actual comments to memory…)

I was right along there with everyone. Well, I think I was probably willing to give the waiter a tip, but anyway it was the first time I realized that it takes at least a few days for a vacationing New Yorker to decompress enough to even realize they aren’t in their office any more. I think for some people it takes longer. (Those men you see lying on the beach screaming, “Buy! Sell!” into the waves? New Yorkers.)

Once they do relax, let’s just say how one defines “relax” certainly varies. The state of relaxation some New Yorkers eventually attain sipping umbrella drinks under a palapa, may well put, say, a Californian, into cardiac arrest.

I have a friend whose family lives in Bermuda. You’d piss your pants laughing to hear him talk about what it’s like getting off a plane from New York and into a car there, where the speed limit is 25 MPH. For him it was the cruelest form of torture.

At any rate, I’m thinking about all this as I sit on our front porch with an iced tea and a baggy full of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. It’s in the high 70′s today and there’s a slight breeze causing my new hanging plants to waft gracefully and send out a hit of jasmine-smell every once and a while. And aside from the intermittent crackling of the baby monitor, it’s pretty quiet here. Especially because both the girls are asleep.

I should put that in italics: Both the girls are asleep.

Yes, without having to invest in the Pottery Barn Kids monogrammed kelly green leather restraint straps, it appears that Kate is actually taking a nap. (This, if you can tell, hasn’t been happening very consistently despite all my desperate entreaties to The Man Upstairs.)

This lovely calm and aloneness is strange. I’m so unaccustomed to it I need some time to settle into it. I spend the first few minutes walking around in circles like a dog trying to find the right place to lie down. Something so rare, so special, must be appreciated and savored to the fullest extent.

But how?

After wracking my brain to determine what I need to do–no wait, what I want to do with this time–the realization washes over me like a warm gulp of bourbon.

I’m going to sit here with my feet propped up on the wicker chair, stare out across the porch, and do absolutely nothing.

And….begin!

Bad Mood Mother’s Day

Let’s just say that yesterday I wasn’t one of those Mamas who was at brunch serenely residing over perfectly behaved children in a state of maternal bliss. Mind you, it wasn’t anything that anyone did per se. We had a lovely day planned and took the ferry to SF and ate a delicious lunch at The Slanted Door.

I think with my birthday the day before and the expectation of a double-billed weekend of an all-about-me Saturday followed by an all-about-me Sunday, somewhere along the line I somehow lost steam. Imagine! It must be my newly advanced age… And, sure, maybe there was a bit of the it’s-my-party-and-I’ll-cry-if-I-want-to syndrome (something I’d hoped I’d outgrown after the weeping by the clothesline incident on my 6th birthday).

Whatever the reason, ooh-wee! I was unsatisfied, dehydrated, impatient, and willing to sell Kate on eBay for five cents. Thankfully I can’t get online with my cell phone.

Hindsight being 20/20, I realize now what I really needed to do was be curled up alone in bed with an IV drip of something renewing. It’s always a struggle deciding whether to spend Mother’s Day with the family or miles and miles away from them. And I think the solution is one part family time, one part alone time, and one part “something renewing.” You know, like whatever Keith Richards uses to reinvigorate himself.
 
I had a brief emotional upswing in the afternoon after the whole family managed to simultaneously nap, but it wasn’t until I got up with Paige at 12:30AM that I started thinking happy thoughts about Mother’s Day–how kinda weird and cool it is that it’s become a holiday that’s celebrated by my contemporaries now. It’s like after all those years as an underclassman, we’re finally the seniors. Woot!

So as it sometimes happens when I get up with Paige, I spend the whole time desperate to crawl back in bed to sleep, but when I get there I find that I’m wide awake. So I started thinking of all my Mama friends–quite a long list of them at this juncture in life–and how all of them really are rocking hard as moms in all different kinds of ways.

So here’s a shout-out to you gals. Toss your breast pads in the air like the hat in the opening sequence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and take a long deep bow for an exhausting, harrowing, heart-warming, and hilarious job well done.

To Julie, Gianni and Tea’s mom, who realized what her family needed was (sniff!) no longer in SF, and like a protective Mama bear whose instincts are keen, moved the clan to a new family-fabulous life in Boulder. Some moms get practical short haircuts when they have kids, but Julie keeps it real by dying her hair bright red and being more likely to be mistaken for a rock star than a mom who brings home the bacon, wipes snotty noses, and writes a brilliant and funny blog.

To Megan, Mama of the delightful Miss Ella B and twins Kate and Wes. Twins who she not only gestated (which alone was an act of staggering bodily strength and heroism) but who she’s raising with incredible patience, love, and enviable organization, oftentimes solo due to a hard-workin’ hubbie. May the gods send you endless blessings for each diaper you’ve ever changed, Megan! You are a wonder, even when you’re way too tired to realize it yourself.

To Story, my homie from RI who is bringin’ up two male Savages–that being their last name. It’s an ironic name since these boys will no doubt be the ones you want your daughter to hang out with in college–the ones you hope she’ll be smart enough to date since they’ll not only be well-mannered and have hearts of gold, but they’ll be hot and kick-ass snowboarders.

To Sacha, mother of fearless Owen and future supermodel Ellie, who manages to make motherhood look like an effortless task on an endless To Do list. These children will never comprehend why other parents don’t consistently throw perfectly-appointed theme parties with clever give-away gifts and cupcakes so good the adults must resist wrestling them from the hands of children.

Speaking of hostesses, Shelley, mother of three beautiful kids who The Gap should be commissioning to model–has never once had her title of World’s Greatest Cook and Impromptu Hostess jeopardized with the birth of each successive child. (Don’t most other moms of three serve Tombstone Pizzas four nights a week and have a dinner party, say, once every three years?) May we always be able to drop in for dinner on a Tuesday night to see that you’ve made the recent Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Shrimp Fra Diablo and an apple pie, and have plenty to happily share. We are truly not worthy, yet we tuck our napkins under our chins with wholehearted amazement and appreciation.

And to Mary, my new friend and mother of the gorgeous doe-eyed sweeties Will and Skylar, who has taken sleep deprivation to an art form nearly as formidable as her photography. My wish for you is that the Sand Man not only pays you a visit, but moves in as an au pair, forever at your disposal. For each wakeless hour in which you should be in a deep REM cycle, may you someday bask lazily in the sun at the vast Italian villa your children eventually buy you.

Oh, there are so many other Mamas whose incredible accomplishments and myriad mundane daily duties I wish to salute…

Jennifer, the do-it-all working stay-at-home mom who doesn’t let the fact that brewing daily adventures takes time and energy stop her from doing it anyway.

Lisa who wrangles two big-brown-eyed beauties, has taken on some godforsaken tech consulting project that she’s effectively teaching herself how to do as she goes, and through it all is a devout reader of this blog!

And there’s Brooke, my neighbor whose mothering I’ve really just witnessed from intermittent sidewalk exchanges but from what I can tell has managed to raise two adult sons who are polite and sweet and who–from the looks of it over here across the street anyways–all seem to enjoy spending time together. (Mental note to interrogate her to determine how she did it.)

Oh, and Lori. Lori! Let’s not forget my sister-in-law who seems to be a made-for-the-job natural, and thank goodness as she often holds down the fort with Gavin and Olivia when her husband is out for days–sometimes weeks–Coast Guarding. All that and she still manages to paint every room in her house and make the world’s best homemade mac and cheese.

There are countless other Miracle Mamas who spring to mind who I’d love to mention–my sister Marie, for instance, who by now is no doubt washing the entire freshman class at Brown’s laundry–but if I enumerate each one and try to pay them justice I won’t have time to replant the flowerbed annuals, have a hot meal on the table when Mark gets home, wax my armpits, or finish sewing all the kids clothes…

So, in the imperfect but well-meaning way that many mothers take it all on, I salute you all, Mamas! Like some Oscar nominee I humbly declare that, shucks, it’s an honor to just be in your ranks. Happy belated Mother’s Day to you! Keep up the good work women, and here’s to hoping you didn’t have your grumpy on quite as much as I did yesterday.

xoxo,
kristen

Children as Chum

Monday when Paigey and I were tooling about the Mission after my doctor’s appointment I noticed a big series of flags/signs promoting a new exhibit at the SF Zoo called Grizzly Gulch.

After a teen-aged boy was mauled by a tiger there on Christmas day, you’d think their PR team would be working towards some damage control. Maybe they should be promoting exhibits with less threat-worthy animals, like Peacock Paradise or Seal Sanctuary.

One hopes at least that said gulch is deep and wide enough to keep the grizzlies on one side and the human snacks on the other.

Day 10 Off Dairy

This morning the cleaning lady didn’t cluck sympathetically when looking at Paige–or more specifically Paige’s skin–then cast me an askance look as if to say she’s not above handing me over to Child Protective Services.

It makes me think my abstinence from dairy may be starting to pay off.

Despite whatever progress we’re making it’s still a constant struggle to keep off the stuff. I feel like I should be in some church basement getting a pin for my 10 days “clean.”