Check Me Out

So, not be all self-horn-blowy or anything, but I thought I’d mention I was recently featured in a Ladies’ Home Journal article about mom bloggers.

And since I may never have a crack at an Oscar speech, I’d just like to unfold a little square of paper, smooth down my Bob Mackie gown and say: “I’m truly honored to be part of a group of such rad, talented, and fabulous women. Who all look ten years younger than they are. And who, I’m sure, never yell at their children. Y’all rock.”

Anyway, check it out if you’re looking for some good new reads. There’s a Finnish Mama who props up her napping baby in hilarious little scenes and photographs them, a foodie whose blog is excellently called My Kids Eat Squid, a design diva who hasn’t let reproduction cramp her style, and an astrophysicist who, amongst other things, writes about her ongoing duel with inflammatory breast cancer (a brutal kind I’d never heard of that forms without a lump).

Oh and of course Dooce is in there too. Right after me. (Heh.)

And if you’re too loyal to even consider reading another blog, you can go straight to my part. I’m #6 of 12.

Makes me feel like a calendar girl.

Wherein I Say I’m Sorry

Okay, okay, I confess. Before we had kids, invitations we got for dinners at friends’ houses that started at 5:30 horrified me. At 5:30 on a weekend I was usually still napping on the couch. Or at a matinee. Or hell, doing something else kidless folks do, like having sex or reading a book.

On weekdays at 5:30 I was just hitting my stride at the office.

The time was unthinkably early. So much so, I thought, as to be rude. (This from the woman who got married on a Sunday night.) How could they ask us to accommodate such an untenable hour?

Yet I felt slightly disorientated when I offered to make dinner reservations for a group of friends I was going out with in Rhode Island this summer. I was at a loss for an appropriate grown-up meal time. In five short years I’ve apparently forgotten that there’s any other time for dinner than, well, 6:00. (I still cling—just barely—to the notion that 5:30 is unthinkable.)

But even now that the shoe is on the other foot, I’ve managed to somehow maintain the irrational attitude that people unlike me should still anticipate my needs.

A few weeks ago, while lunching at the glamorous California Pizza Kitchen, our waitress approached our booth, propped a picture-packed dessert menu in front of the girls and cooed, “Can I tempt you with something?” Then ran off.

Galled, Mark and I looked at each other with the Tori Spelling nostril-flare of disgusted disbelief. He snatched up the menu  before the girls could feast their eyes. And weirdly, it worked. It all happened faster than they had time to process. Yet we braced for whining, pleading, and mortifying kicking thrashing tantrums.

Why doesn’t that 19-year-old waitress know that the way to offer us something should have been, “Can I interest anyone in some D-E-S-S-E-R-T?”

Puhleez. Was she raised on Mars?

Yesterday there were a couple events for Kate’s kindergarten. Things to get the kids comfy in their classrooms before school starts next week. I had no doubt Kater Tot would have fun, but I was dreading my own reaction to the day. What if I hated everyone?

In my sister’s kitchen a couple weeks ago, I revealed this.

“You know, I realized,” she said, dunking a tea bag in a mug, “that in any new group situation I immediately decide that I don’t like anyone.”

Now this is why I don’t pay for therapy. What she described is utterly and entirely what I do too. It rocks being able to draft off her self-revelations.

‘But then,” she went on, “After I get to know them a little more, I’m totally fine. I always find people I like.”

Uh, BINGO! That’d be me you are talking about.

So, with Big Sister’s words o’ wisdom in mind, I set my expectations accordingly. At the end of the day I wouldn’t be performing any blood-swapping sisterhood rituals with the other Room 2 moms. But that would be OKAY. Plenty of time to get to know and not-hate each other in the course of the school year.

But then of course, just to ruin my plans, I ended up really liking some of the people I met.

One of the mothers, wearing hip black boots (not black hip boots, mind you), started talking about a form we’d had to fill out for the school. There were four Mamas, sitting around a low kidney-shaped table in plastic kiddie chairs. “You know the question ‘Does your child have any fears or concerns that the teachers should be aware of?’” she asked.

Nods all around, and some anticipatory leaning forward.

“Well,” she stammered, a little embarrassed, “It sounds kind of weird but Jamie has this thing about being trapped in places.”

“Huh,” I offered. “Sounds like a perfectly reasonable fear.”

“So we were at Home Depot, and you know they have those big metal warehouse doors?”

Nods, nods.

“He started getting all panicky that they might suddenly close the store, and they wouldn’t know we were inside, and we’d be trapped.”

Encouraging ‘oohs’ from around the wee table.

“So I go up to this woman who works there and say, ‘What would happen if you were to close the store when we were still here?’ And she looks at Jamie and gets her fingers all wiggly in his face and says, ‘Well those big doors would bang shut! And you’d be trapped in here! And it would be dark and cold, and you’d have to wait until the morning when we open again to get out!’”

The three of us Listening Mamas banged our palms on the table and hollered, “No she DID NOT!” and “You are KIDDING me.” We were ready, in our NorCal way, to band together, get the word out, and ban shopping at Home Deport forever.

“Yeah, so poor Jamie was, like, set back about six months on this issue,” Hip Boot Mama says.

And I’m all, “Yeah you should forward the therapy bills to that woman.”

The thing is, how many times with my often-inappropriate snarky sensibilities have I done something just as bad? As a Mama, now that I’m on the receiving end of the idle thoughtlessness of strangers, I’m appalled by it all.

What is wrong with you people?! Can’t you see we’re trying to raise non-psycho children? Who will buy us large homes and luxury vehicles when we’re old and enfeebled and they’ve struck it rich?

Can’t you tell we don’t get to take afternoon naps any more? And we really really miss them.

Anyway, it’s likely too late, but for all those kids who I might have tempted with inaccessible sweets or unwittingly traumatized in other ways, I’d just like to say for the record that I’m really. Very. Sorry.

Love Tackles

I don’t know the first thing about football, but in getting to know—and love—Mark’s college friends, I’ve learned a thing or two about tackling.

The night before our wedding, there was a lobster bake in a tent in my dad’s backyard. It was where Mark and I got that first intense wedding-weekend hit of love from so many fine folk coming from far afield to see us get marinated. It was also, it so happens, the same day my father kidnapped our friend Gary. But that’s another story.

So there I was reveling in the love and the people and the chardonnay and the Rhode Island summer heat, chatting with someone or other, when I was suddenly, quite literally, swept off my feet. It was one of those “it happened so fast” kinda moments. I wasn’t sure where it came from or what it was, but I found myself lifted up and then pinned down onto my father’s desk. The perpetrator—whose head was tucked down somewhere in my midsection—was human. But that was all I could tell.

It took longer than my barely-there patience could handle to determine what was happening. But then the perp looked up, and with her huge grin and mop of strawberry blond hair yelled in high-def close range, “We are HERE, girlfriend! Let the games begin!”

It was Becca. Mark’s glorious fabulous college friend, Becca. Whose house I have the great pleasure of being at this very weekend. In what has most-excellently become an annual pilgrimage to Minnesota for lakeside hi-jinx. Because, six years and six children between us later, we are still giddy-tackle happy to see each other. Though blessedly, in recent reunions she has not knocked the wind out of me.

I mean, I really shouldn’t be pointing fingers here. Since another of Mark’s divine college cohorts, the aforementioned kidnapped Gary—or Uncle Gary as he’s now known to the kidlings—is here with us too. And years before Becca ever tackled me on my wedding weekend, I had the social misfortune of tackling him.

I blame it all on the event’s bartender, who clearly over-served me. Or maybe it was the humid Midwestern lakefront air that clouded my judgment. At any rate, we were at another of Mark’s college friend’s matrimonial celebrations. And I’d had a few.

I was walking from some lake-facing veranda back into the room with the band. And there was Gary. Standing on or near the dance floor. Looking so, well, tackle-able. Some so-bad-it’s-good 80s song was playing, and like some figure skater who visualizes a move before taking to the ice, I saw in my mind’s eye what I would do. That I would run up to Gary, jump with my legs outstretched to straddle his waist, and we would swing jauntily about the dance floor. Like some Travolta-Thurman dance scene from Pulp Fiction.

Compelled by alcohol-borne bad judgment and feeling exceedingly exuberant I ran with the chin-down determination of an Olympic pole-vaulter, and threw myself upon the utterly unawares (and might I add slight-of-build) Gary.

And let’s just say what happened looked nothing like what I’d envisioned.

I flattened him to the ground like a fly. He was stunned, dismayed, and likely injured. I imagine the dress of my skirt landed in a position that revealed parts of me best left to the bride’s grandmother’s imagination.

It was mortifying, and yet, Gary’s good nature managed to rise above. In my vodka-soaked haze I seem to remember him lending me a shoulder as we both limped off the dance floor, me slurring loud apologies in his ear.

Good times.

Ever the mini-me, Kate kept the flame alive when Gary met up with us earlier today. Since his arrival she’s been climbing onto his back and hanging off his neck like one of those long-armed monkey dolls. Despite our once-yearly time together, she’s instantly drawn to him. And though she may nearly choke the dear man with affection at times, she hasn’t (thus far) leveled him to the ground.

With Kate on Gary like her own personal climbing wall, in the other room toddlers Paige and Leo are squaring off. Squatting down and looking each other straight in the eyes, they lunge forward like two Sumo wrestlers going in for the kill. Paige has six months on Leo, so their playing ground is fairly even now. But by next year’s trip he’ll clearly dominate their happy head-butting encounters.

And so the tackling continues. Passed on to the next generation.

As for us big kids, in an hour or so when we arrive at the lake house, I expect the most tackling we’ll be doing will involve the cases of beer that Becca’s husband and Gary both brew by profession. But don’t for a minute think that means we love each other any less.

Separated at Birth?

I came across this old pic of Paigey the other day.

So wee. So somber. So freakin’ bald!

If you don’t recognize the cartoon character on the right, I’m so deeply jealous. The little dude’s name is Caillou (pronounced KAI-oooh), and at age four I’ve got no idea why he waxes his head. I mean, I’m assuming he’s working for that look.

Anyway, Kate LOVES Caillou, and even though I’d prefer that she practices her Latin or square roots, I love having occasional down-time from Mamahood. (I mean, I’m mortal and all.) So I sometimes let her watch it.

What’s tortuous about the show is the narrator, who I assume is Caillous’s grandmother. She has this weak creaky voice that jangles my nerves and causes my ears to bleed. It really could be used to snuff terrorists out of underground bunkers. (U.S. Armed Forces take note.)

So really, I’m not even sure what the show’s about, since after I turn it on I have to run from the room with my fingers stuffed in my ears saying, “LA LA LA LA” until I’m a safe distance away. For all I know it’s about sex positions or how to build bombs.

But hey, it gives me 30 minutes of free time.

For the record, these days Paigey’s not likely to be confused with Caillou. (And her grandmothers have perfectly lovely voices, thankyouverymuch.) Right now Paige is ALL ABOUT the hair. I mean, she personally doesn’t think much about it, but everyone else seems to.

When we walk down the street cars screech to a halt to call out, “Would ya look at the blond curls on that one!” Grannies in the grocery store paw at her head. And gay men discreetly ask me what products she uses.

I imagine it’s what it’s like hanging out with Diana Ross, Crystal Gayle, or Don King. I’m fine with Paige’s hair getting all the attention. I’ve gotten quite used to it, in fact.

But it was cool stumbling across that old chrome dome shot, if only to remember the sweet little scalp that lies beneath it all.

If Paige ever starts getting wise to her good looks, I think I’ll keep that picture handy. There’s nothing like getting back to your roots to keep you humble.

WMNRSMTR

Years ago, driving across the Bay Bridge, I saw a car with the license plate WMNRSMTR.

As you may know (from my excessive blathering about it), I’m from Rhode Island. A place where vanity license plates—and those with low numbers—are regarded as the pinnacle of social worth.

Not to show off or anything, but my first car, a major jalopy, had the most-excellent plate, KB 2. It was because I was dating the son of a Department of Transportation employee. That car’s been off the road for twenty years now, but my Dad (FB 14) is still proud of that license plate.

Aaaanyway, I was driving behind WMNRSMTR. It was clear that there was a message in there, but not so clear what it was. And I’m usually great with word things. It’s those pastel dotty posters you’re supposed to stare at until you see the wolf baying at the moon that I have trouble with. I almost never succeed at having the image emerge, and end up just lying to whomever I’m shopping with at Spencer’s that I saw it.

But I digress.

So here’s me, alone in my car, trying to crack the code:

“Wim… Nurse.. Mutter…”

“Wih Minners Matter?”

Then more determined:

“Wim NERsum Terr!”

“Wimin URS Tur!”

And finally:

“Wim NER Smerrterr?”

[Click!]

“WOMEN ARE SMARTER!”

Yeah, yeah, I get the irony.

And speaking of women, but really just a total tangent, I realized the other day that my gynecologist’s office is on BUSH Street. No joke! How good is that?

So a couple months ago I went on a day-long yoga retreat in Marin. I’ve done this before but always with my friend and faithful neighb, Jennifer. This time I was flying solo. So at the lunch break I was sitting somewhat dorkishly at the big communal table, having one of my twice-a-decade moments of shyness. Just hoping one of the other yoginis might put their play-with-the-outcast-on-the-playground skills to work.

A trio of older women, in their 60s or so, were sitting to my right. And one of them got to talking in a loud and animated enough way that I felt I could scoop hippie vegan soup into my mouth and look at her. You know, pretend that she was talking to me too.

She’d lived in a chicken coop in Georgia, she said. Yes, a chicken coop. Starting when she was 20 until about—long pause, looking up sideways to think—until she was 26. “It had a packed clay floor,” she pointed out. As if we’d all maybe been picturing parquet. They cooked on a grill and had an outdoor water drum that was painted black that they used as a shower.

I was instantly jealous.

When I was 20 I was living in Ohio. Sure that’s rustic and all, but I mean, I had indoor plumbing.

She’d moved to Georgia from Minnesota with her “pack,” as she called them. A group of about eight who I couldn’t help but imagine as a bra-disparaging partner-swapping commune-like klatch.

Again, more envy. Or maybe just deep deep fascination.

And they were potters, of course. That’s to say, throwers of pots. (By this point in the story I think I’d pulled my chair nearly an inch from her, abandoning my soup, enraptured.) They—her “pack”–had waited for their potter’s wheels to arrive in the mail first, then they hit the road for Georgia.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many pottery wheels they had, and why they didn’t just have them shipped straight to Georgia. But I didn’t want to ask too many questions. After all, I was kind of auditing the story as it was.

After more good stuff about one klatch member who was a professor getting fired, and some details on the rigors of heat-free winter-living, she mentioned  she now owns a gallery in Berkeley. The woman at her left has a gallery there too. They said the names of the places, which I of course instantly forgot, but in my mind I envisioned visiting there a lot. Buying stuff. Becoming an apprentice. Keeping a pet cat there.

Even though I kinda hate pottery.

Then this other woman pulls up a chair with her bowl of soup. And for a moment my verging-on-creepy fixation with the gray-haired pot-throwers was broken.

The new woman started chatting with the instructor about how she’s out of town so often for work. So, I summon some social courage and ask her what she does.

And DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE SAID? She said she is a bee broker.

A BEE broker!!

I didn’t know what that was but I instantly wanted to be one too. BEES! Of course!

So, I say, “So, uh, what is a bee broker?”

And do you know what she said? She said that she has some big rig that’s filled with hives that she brings down to Modesto to the almond farms. She then sets her bees free in the fields. It’s like the farmers rent them! Then at night when it gets all chilly the bees fly back into the truck to go to sleep with in the hive, or have sex with the queen, or do whatever it is they do in there. Then Ms. Bee Broker heads off to another farm.

I almost hugged her.

Now I was going to have to split my weekends between Modesto and the Berkeley pottery studios.

All this talk was more energizing than all the hold-one-nostril breathing and triangle-posing the first half of the retreat had served up. I loved every one of these women. If these gals by were so amazing, what were the ones crouched over their vegan soup over there like? I wanted to start going from woman to woman, looking intently into each of their faces and interviewing them all documentary-style.

I mean, I was feeling like the odds that the next person I’d talk to would be a Bed, Bath & Beyond employee was pretty low. But the thing is, if she had been, I think I would have suddenly slipped into a reverential trance, and praised all that was holy about mattress pads. I was ready to find the love in everyone.

Without drugs!

After lunch and before my yoga, we all hiked to the beach. This hike is pretty crazy gorgeous. If you’re ever in California, call me and I’ll take you to this place. It’s along a super lush valley where these Buddhists have a homestead. You pass all their perfect vegetable and flower gardens, then a silly idyllic horse pasture, and then the path narrows and it’s all just and trees and flowers and birds and butterflies and nature and shit.

What I mean is, it sure is purdy there.

Then when you arrive at the beach, you get that positive ion hit. Whatever that high is that you get from the ocean water. Someone told me about this once and I still believe that there’s something to it, even if it’s really not true.

But clearly in the mode that I was in I needed no more highs of any sort.

Beachside I wandered up to a group of co-yoga-retreaters and sat on a driftwood log with them. (See how socially brave I was getting?) We were looking out at the water, and I was feeling certain one of them was about to tell me something that would make me weep and hug her ankles and think that the world was a beautiful beautiful place. You know. I was just waiting for that.

Even better, I got some excellent book recommendations. These gals were older, but let’s just say we were reading at the same level. We all clucked with praise for that great hedgehog novel. And then they bantered about the name of a few other amazing reads. Eventually I’d borrowed a pencil from one of them and an ATM receipt from another and wrote the all the titles all down. We even talked about our favorite children’s lit because—get this—one of them had been a children’s librarian for, like, 30 years or something. Joy!

If I were to spelunk a few layers down on my desk today, I may even find that paper today and read those books.

Just a day or two after it opened, I went to see the Sex and the City movie with a Mama Posse friend. I never read movie reviews. Having even the smallest inkling of what to expect in a movie destroys it for me. I spend the whole time waiting for whichever scene it is that’s funny or dumb, and I can’t even enjoy my wine. (Yes, smuggling red wine and plastic cups into the movies has become par for the course for me and the Mamas.)

But in the days leading out to my Moms Night Out, Mark, bless his heart, made sure I knew how utterly decimated this movie had gotten by reviewers. It’s badness delighted him.

But whatEVER. We still went. And all of Oakland was out in their fancy. I mean, black girls in stilettos and what looked like prom dresses. I mean, it’s Oakland. If there was any Prada, I didn’t see it.

Me, I was in flip flops.

And do you know what? I LIKED the movie. Sure it was vapid and silly and predictable, and there were probably some culturally-offensive jokes, but it was entertaining. Yes, I actually chuckled—full-out laughed a bit too—and found it perfectly un-intellectually engaging.

On the way out, I think I even complimented a woman on her purple clutch, awash with feel-good audience-mate comraderie.

I’m not exactly sure what all those reviews said—because if I’m disinclined to read reviews before seeing a movie I’m even disinclineder to read them after. Maybe those writers were preparing to see Amistad, and were taken aback when the movie was more about Manolo Blahnik shoes, low-cal cocktails, and menopause. You know, I think they were missing the point.

While I’m at it, do you know what movie I also saw last week? The latest Twilight movie. Oh yes I did.

And I LIKED THAT TOO.

Sure, I’d had—-okay—a few Mai Tais beforehand. But even without cheap rum coursing through my veins I think I’d be squealing over the dreamy barely-legal cast and walloping my poor friend’s arm during the shirtless scenes. It was entertaining. I enjoyed myself.

And where’s the shame in that?

I’m hardly going to defend the artistic merit of either movie. But I will say, that in a theater full of women who likely spent their days working in courtrooms, or classrooms, or at The Sunglass Hut—or hell, wrangling with clay or bees or young children—for us gals it felt good to put our hair down and our feet up and let the low-browness of it all wash over us. I mean, isn’t that why men watch wrestling?

From what I can tell, despite what movies we may make a big show of going to, that license plate was right. Women are smarter.

She’s No Nadia

I’m a lousy telemarker. And that’s no typo, Jeff. I do mean telemarker, not telemarketer. I’ve never actually done telemarketing (thank GOD). Even so, I bet I’d be pretty good at bringing that phone script to life.

Yeah so telemarking, for the luckily uninitiated, is a kind of skiing. It’s like downhill skiing, but on cross-country skis where your heel isn’t clamped into the binding. When you turn you bend one knee down towards the ski, while keeping the other one bent out in front of you. So as you come down the mountain it looks like you’re popping into position to propose every time you turn.

There’s also a thing called ‘jump telemarking’ or ‘jump tele’ where you add a little hop to that scenario. That’s for real show-offs.

Anyway, I suck at telemark skiing. Suck. Suck. Suuuuuck.

I know this because many many years ago—back in the Dark Ages before your parents were probably even born—I was dating a ski-obsessed fellow. He thought it’d be fun for us to take a weekend telemarking clinic.

Now, you might think the term ‘clinic’ is an odd one to pair with a recreational activity. ‘Clinic’ brings to mind images of nothing even remotely fun. Instead one conjures a cold, undesirable environment where you’re often in a great deal of pain.

It turns out that clinic was the perfect term for this ski weekend after all.

I’ll lay the groundwork by stating that I was pretty much a newbie to even downhill skiing at the time. The Brunos did not ski when we were young. We did not take road trips. We did not go camping. Everything about my childhood left me utterly unprepared for adult life in California—but that’s another story. There may even be a book in there somewhere.

Anywho, everyone else at this clinic was wearing faded Boston Marathon t-shirts. Trading war stories from their last IronMan. Making plans to swim to Alcatraz together upon our return to SF.

Me? I was unfamiliar with the PowerBars the teachers handed out during our first break. “Power Bar?!” I balked, as I sunk my teeth into the pale tan gummy thing. “More like a flat, undelicious Tootsie Roll.”

It turned out the other kids were familiar with this new-to-me foodstuff. They not only didn’t get my joke, they looked at me horrified, as if I’d spat out their Italian Nana’s pasta sauce.

But what really set me apart from these people was my utter incompetence on telemark skis. Throughout the weekend our teachers commanded us to get into “the telemark position”—that about-to-propose stance. By Monday morning I was scanning phone books to find someone who could erase that traumatic term from my mind.

My body seemed unwilling to bend that way, turn the skis, and move downhill across slippery snow. And when the kindly teachers offered extra help, their instructions baffled me. “Make your top thigh parallel to the ground!” they’d call out. “Wait… Aren’t I doing that?” I’d think to myself.

It was then that I discovered the gaping disconnect in my mind-body link. I understood intellectually how I should position my body, and I felt certain I was doing just that. In reality I was doing something closer to the Walk Like an Egyptian dance.

What killed me about all this wasn’t the brutal muscle burn that radiated from my legs for days after. It wasn’t having to wear the light gray rental telemark boots—stinky square-toed numbers that had less fashion merit than nursing shoes. It wasn’t even taking a perfectly good weekend to drive to Lake Tahoe with a group of people who—aside from my beau—I’d never see again. Nor was it the mortification of popping my PowerBar cherry in front of a group of die-hard devotees.

What tore me up about the whole experience was my persistent and thorough inability to get it. That weekend rocked my world for a while after, and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about telemark skiing, and was actually thrilled at the prospect of never doing it again. But I was deeply shaken by being pulled that far out of my comfort zone.

I realized that in school, or at work, or in social situations—wherever there’s something to grasp or learn or pick up on—I’m used to catching on. At least eventually.

Drunken bidding at preschool auctions, now that’s in my sweet spot. And that’s exactly what recently landed Kate and Paige into new gymnastics classes.

They’ve gone two times thus far. The classes are held in a huge warehouse-like space, and several coaches conduct classes for various age groups at the same time.

Paigey and I are in the toddler class, which requires parental involvement. Kate on the other hand rocks her class solo. And every once and a while—generally when Paige catches a glimpse of Kate and runs screaming after her—I’ll look up to see Kate in purple flowered Spandex, arms extended out from her sides, walking along the balance beam with impressive grace and ease. It’s amazing what she’s picked up so quickly. She’s ravenous for more more more hot gymnastics fun, and starts whining from the moment we leave the place, “When is gymnastics class next?”

Paigey, on the other hand, is no future Nadia Comaneci. When the instruction is to bunny hop down the long trampoline, Paige opts to walk, wobbly-legged, curls bouncing. When the other kids climb up on the ladder-bars of a dome-shaped thing, Paige just touches her hand to it, then turns and wanders away. On the low kiddie-level balance beam she takes a couple steps then bellows, “Down, Mama! DOOOWN!” It’s only the hot dog roll that she performs with the same finesse as her classmates. (The thing I knew as a log roll when I was a kid. But that’s back when play structures were called jungle gyms. So what do I know?)

Kate’s got Coach Jordan, some young dude who all the parents gush over. Various maternal informants insisted he was THE teacher to get. But Paige’s coach is the one whose class took place at the same time as Kate’s. And when I first saw her blue hair, multi-pierced face, and neck and arm tattoos, well, what can I say? I judged her.

She was no Coach Jordan. No Coach Jordan indeed.

But towards the end of the first class, with Paige able to really do so few things, I felt obliged to ask Tattooed Lady whether Paigey Wigs might be in the wrong class.

“She was a late walker,” I offered up.

“Oh,” she said, unimpressed.

“Yeah, like she didn’t walk until she was 21 months old,” I persisted. “Like REALLY late.”

This is me in confessional mode. Get me anywhere close to a topic I don’t want to talk about, or I think you might call me on, and I respond by telling all. “Let me beat you to the punch,” my pysche says. Before you ask me a question I don’t want to answer, I’m just going to lob the information right at you.

I’d be a terrible spy.

And I couldn’t stop once started. “She’s in physical therapy!”I blurted out. “She’s really still mastering going down stairs! Sometimes her breath is really bad in the morning!”

Okay, so I wasn’t that revealing. But I did find I was suddenly throwing myself at the mercy of She With The Large Spider Tramp Stamp. Beseeching her for advice with every last drop of my Mama being.

“Should I put her in a lower class? There are lower levels aren’t there? Would she do better there? Get the hang of it? Get more out of it?” I was panting at this point. Yelping. Nearly pawing at her like a chihuahua, small frenzied legs raking away furiously.

We looked up as a line of toddlers forward rolled. Paige squealed with excitement, lost her balance, and fell on her ass. Then she got up to follow the crew to the foam pit.

“You know what?” Coach Nose Ring said, chewing on a lock of blue hair. “She’s not doing everything, but it’s good for her to have the challenge. She’ll learn from watching the other kids. And look at her,” she said, nodding towards Paige who was gleefully watching her classmates crawl through the foam pit. “She’s having a blast.”

And the thing was—as utterly mystifying it was to me—she actually was.

So Paige is staying in gymnastics class. And I’m training my mind to not start thinking that the other parents meet in the parking lot after class to discuss that curly-haired girl who’s just not catching on. I’m trying to repress my urges to apologize for Paigey’s hot dog rolls, when what’s called for is a blast off. And I’ve given up on trying to coerce her back onto the balance beam.

Someday she’ll learn how to jump and somersault and even cartwheel. In the meantime I’m hoping that I’ll learn that you don’t have to be at the head of the class to have a good time.

You’re On the Air

I cried on the radio the other day.

No, I didn’t drape myself over a boom box to weep. I actually called into a radio show and cried. Live on the air.

And to be clear, I’m not someone who calls into radio shows. In my teen years I never once tried to win concert tickets. Like watching American Idol, eating mushrooms, or waking up early to work out, calling into radio shows is something other people do. Not me.

But I’ve recently come to know a talk show host—or should I say hostess? Her radio show, Childhood Matters, is about parenting. Or more precisely, things of interest to people who have an interest in kids.

The topic was milestone delays. And though I started listening with no intention of calling in, I got to thinking about my own dear Paigey. Her learning to walk at 21 months certainly qualified as a milestone delay.

There were folks talking about autism and other kindsa things that trigger most parents to stick their fingers in their ears and say, “LA LA LA LA” really loudly so they can’t hear any more. As if you (or your kid) could catch something just by turning your mind to it.

And frankly as I puttered around listening to the show, I was mentally separating myself from those folks too. Kate and Paige were busying themselves at their toy kitchen, preparing an array of wooden foods to faux-feed their dolls and each other. They were playing so nicely. Such a normal healthy little scene. I got a sudden strong surge to share a milestone-delay success story.

So I called in, and talked to the producer, who said to hold on a minute, and before you know it I was on the air, and next thing after that without having seen it coming, my voice started cracking as I told the story about that one day a year ago when our pediatrician quietly kindly urged me to have Paige “assessed.” I’d told this story dozens of times to friends and family, but it wasn’t until that moment that I somehow felt just how damn scared I’d been back then.

Of course, producers love criers. (I know, I used to be one. A producer, that is. Before I was a crier. I guess I have experience in both realms now.) Anyway, I eventually managed to get my un-sad voice back. And at that point, of course, I felt like I was just getting warmed up. On Paige’s second birthday, I told the listeners, she was zooming around the house squealing and playing alongside all the other two-year-olds. And despite the long haul it’d taken for her to get there, it was clear that she had finally, blessedly caught up. Nothing different between those kids and my girl.

I know I haven’t written about my adventures at the Olympics. Sometimes big, super-fun, once-in-a-lifetime things happen, and instead of writing about those, I find myself focused on the minutiae of every day life.

Besides, that adventure came to a sad end with the unexpected death of Mark’s amazing grandfather. The man was a brilliant businessman in his day, a larger-than-life family man, a reciter of poetry, and apparently a hell of a golfer. Kate’s middle name—Miller—hails from none other than Grandpa John and his wife, Lois. It’s a tribute I’m so very happy we made.

It’s weird how grief works. After my mother died I went to a Day of the Dead parade, expecting a torrent of tears. But nothing. And just a month after her death, I went through Mother’s Day strangely—nearly embarrassingly—devoid of deep sorrow.

But then one day, out to lunch at a cafe, a friend ordered an iced tea, and I excused myself to the bathroom where I sobbed and sobbed. In Target a woman told her child they were going home to meet Grandma, and I sat in the parking lot bawling, unable to drive. When I least expect it the tears still come.

Who knows if it’ll be that way for the people mourning Grandpa John. Surely I’m not the only one to wail in the Target lot. If the folks in Mark’s family are suddenly overcome by the random ordering of a beverage, I hope they feel a bit better on the other side of the tears. I’m no Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, but I do appreciate the cleansing effects of a good cry.

As for my emotional outburst on the radio? Well, when I call in some day to win Jonas Brothers tickets—something I assume I’m bound to do now that I’ve broken the seal on calling radio shows—the next time I’m on the air I’ll strive to exercise a bit more composure.

Tell Me that Story Again

Last week I did two things I never do. I turned on the TV when both girls were awake. (I think Paigey’s still too wee to develop a boob tube habit). And I tuned in to—of all things—a telethon. Specifically, the ‘Hope for Haiti Now’ telethon.

Weird, right? But in my defense, replacing Jerry Lewis with George Clooney goes a long way in my book. And it was for a good cause.

Anyway, the second the TV clicked on, Kate ran out of her room like a junkie moving in on a fix. It was both thrilling and confusing to her.

“Wait, the TV?” she asked in a frenzy. “Are YOU watching TV, Mama? Can I watch too? Please? Please?!”

I swear the girl would happily watch Hogan’s Heroes if I let her.

But this was music. People strumming guitars and soulfully singing songs like “Let It Be.” So I figured, what could it hurt? She perched on the arm of the couch and immediately went into a glassy-eyed zombie stare, letting the TV’s narcotic hit wash over her.

Then Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood started talking about some courageous man, and it seemed likely they were about to get into the details of how the dude had died. So I hit Mute, and when Kate protested I made up some excuse .

Eventually I decided to venture into the what-happened-in-Haiti waters. Age-appropriately, I hoped. “Blah blah blah earthquake… Blah blah people got hurt… Blah blah houses fell down, everyone very poor. People there need help. And money.”

More music, volume back up, and me in the kitchen to check the roasting veggies.

Kate, calling out from her couch perch. “Mama?! Tell me that story again. What’s the shaky ground thing called again?”

“An earthquake.” I walked into the living room.

“Oh,” she said, turning the idea over in her mind. “Do they have those,” I braced for her question “–in Rhode Island?”

“Oh, in Rhode ISLAND?” I said, exhaling. “Nope! No earthquakes there!”

“Oh.”

Two second pause.

“Do they have ‘em here?”

Crap. “Well, uh… Well, uhhh, nnnnnooooo. Well, not like that. I mean, it’s just not something you have to worry about.” I handled this nearly as poorly as I did when Kate asked me in front of a neighbor how babies come out of their mommies. (Don’t even ask.)

At dinner, it was like I could feel Kate’s brain processing what I’d told her. While tuned into the telethon she’d seen a doctor holding a baby with a tube in its nose and its head all bandaged up. A couple times she said, “Tell me that story again, Mama.” And a couple times I tried to get though on the phone lines, hoping I’d get a chance to chat up George Clooney or Julia Roberts as I made a paltry donation.

The phone lines were busy, which was great for the telethon, but dashed my hopes of hobnobbing with the real-live pages of People magazine. Or of doing anything to pitch in.

Kate was clearly worried about the Haitians, and getting ready for her bath asked questions like, “When those people got hurt when the ground shaked, did they have blood?” For my part, busy signals aside, I was feeling frustrated that we’re not in a position these days to make the level of donation I’d really like to.

And then, like a good Italian girl it hit me. Kate and I could cook. We roll up our sleeves together, do what we do best–bake!—then host a bake sale, right out in front of our house. We’d donate everything we made to help the relief effort.

She LOVED the idea. Her concerned line of questions turned instantly to excitement. “We’ll make Rice Krispie Treats! With little M&Ms! We’ll make chocolate chip cookies, Mama!”

On Sunday we had our sale. We timed it to get foot traffic from our nearby farmer’s market. And we made $189. People were amazingly generous, handing cash over to Kate without even taking a treat, or giving us a twenty for one item and telling us to keep–or rather, give away–the change.

I love our neighborhood.

The next day, we visited Mark’s office to sell the left-overs, and tacked another $71 onto our earnings. And since we were feeling unstoppable at that point, I called Kate’s school and arranged to spearhead a bake sale there too.

Kate said she thinks all the kids in Haiti are going to get Hello Kitty band-aids for their boo-boos, on account of our two bake sales. And damn it, I hope to hell she’s right.

The other night, in our bleary-eyed first adult words to each other after the kids were in bed, Mark told me he was proud of us. But quickly added something like, “Why is it you and Kate decided to save the world after we handed in her school applications?”

Ha.

Well, this morning Kate has the first of her private school assessments. (Two more to go after that one.) We’ll bring her to the school for a 90-minute visit where she’ll play with other kids, probably do some writing and drawing, and be asked some questions.

I’m hoping that Kate won’t have tired of her “Tell me that shaky-ground story again, Mama” question. And that she’ll ask me in front of the school’s Admissions Director. That’ll give me a chance to gently recount once more what happened to the people of Haiti.

Then I can set her up by asking, “And what did we do about it, Kate?”

From the Hands of Babes

A friend came over for dinner recently and brought a bottle of wine and a copy of The Girlfriends’ Guide to Getting Your Groove Back: Loving Your Family Without Losing Your Mind. It was written by that chick Vicki Iovine—the skinny-ass former Playboy centerfold turned domestic advice-giver who’s married to a gazillionaire music exec. Or maybe they’re divorced at this point.

Whatever the case, it’s crazy how much she and I have in common.

Anyway, I haven’t cracked the book, nor do I intend to. I’m a firm believer that reading about how overwhelmed you are is neither entertaining nor productive. Whereas reading about absolutely anything else—say, hot teen vampire sex—has a much better chance at alleviating standard-grade housewife malaise. (Note: I have not yet succumbed to the smut-lit allure of those books. But I do have the first one in a pile by my nightstand.)

And I wasn’t offended by my friend’s offering. I didn’t think it was some sort of hand-patting, “Honey, really, read the book” kinda intervention. Especially since it wasn’t even intended for me. (Or so she said.) Her daughter had allegedly been rooting around in their house, and dragged it into the living room. And seeing as my friend’s groove is apparently intact, she dropped the book in her bag in case I, or the other friend we were seeing that night, were in need of some groove restoration.

But the truth is, I had been lamenting that ever since the calendar flipped to 2010 I’ve been in a bad mood. My groove in this new decade–or lack thereof—has been informed by my wretchedly out-of-whack back, my agita over getting Kate into a good school next year, and the dreary fact that my book proposal has gotten nowhere closer to being completed than it was in, say, early November. Add to that the extra pounds I packed on over the holidays, for a nice veneer of flagging self-esteem.

Even though it’s just been sitting here, my friend’s kid having unearthed the groove-regetting manual maybe did have some impact on my psyche. Perhaps by its mere presence in my house, the tides of ill-humor have started to change.

First-off, we’ve made progress on Kate’s school applications. Two of them are already handed in (despite an 11th-hour explosion of loose powder blush that came close to rendering the hand-written one, well, “Warmth” pink.) All the nail-chewing over writing the damn things has suddenly changed into an optimistic excitement about how amazing it’ll be for Kate (and us) to be part of one of these cool schools. I’m already planning to volunteer in the classroom constantly. (They’ll have a maternal restraining order out for me by late fall…)

My back still sucks. As in, hurts nearly constantly. But Paigey got into a fabulous preschool for next year. And my book proposal’s still dead in the water, but I’m resolved to get childcare in the coming weeks to make some headway on it.

And I’ve got two great trips to look forward to. A hopefully snow-covered jaunt to Rhode Island and a most-certainly white-capped visit to Vancouver. Thanks in no part to my athletic prowess, I am going to the Olympics!

Also, in a totally not-me move, I decided to Just Say No to my book group book. Just not read it! How liberating is that? Usually I stressfully speed-read in the final days before we meet, as if I’m prepping for the LSATs or something. But after reading the first five of the book’s 400-plus pages, I simply decided I just wasn’t 400-plus-pages-worth of interested. To some this may seem a minor act of rebellion, but for a rule-follower and perfect-attendance gal like myself, this felt as bad-girl liberating as the Queen must feel peeing in the shower.

I also recently picked up a wee freelance gig at TV.com. My first piece, a recap of the show Brothers & Sisters, wasn’t half-bad. (At least according to my father.) Mark’s also got a 14-pound brisket slooooow-cookin’ in the smoker I got him for Christmas. And really who can feel gloomy at the prospect of the lifetime of smoked meats that now extends before me? (His enthusiasm for this new toy is such that we may also be eating smoked breakfast cereal Chez McClusky soon.)

Even my dream life is showing signs that I’m relaxing a bit. Like last night, I had a kinda sex dream about one of the schools Kate’s applying to. And I call it a sex dream, but when I described it to Mark he pointed out that there really was no sex in it whatsoever. But you don’t always need sex for sex, right? I mean, didn’t we learn that lesson years ago from Bill Clinton?

So in the dream I’m at this school (our top pick for Kate, in fact) and I’m taking a tour. And on the tour all the perspective parents get shunted into the school’s wood shop, where there’s this strapping, black hottie of a wood shop teacher. (This, by the way, is nothing like their real wood shop teacher. It’s a dream, people.) And then in that weird dream-way that you just skip over some of the boring how-things-unfolded parts, next thing you know he and I are in my car! But no no no, not groping each other or anything, just driving around. You know, with our thighs all close together and almost touching in the way they are when you are in a close-quartered dream-car next to the hot wood shop teacher. Like you do.

So he tells me he’s been working at the school for 30 years, but he says, “thirty years of radiation” which in that weird dream-way I don’t find to be an odd turn of a phrase and simply take to mean he’s been getting cancer treatments all that time. But it’s not like that’s a sad thing. In fact, this virile wood shop teacher who for some reason I’ve kidnapped mid-school-tour looks altogether healthy. And I just say to him, “Yeah I don’t want to go there.” And, dreamily, he’s not offended at all, and we just keep driving and I think, “I really should get back to the school tour.”

And then I woke up.

Chaste. And still even Dreamland-loyal to my husband.

Several weeks ago we were at a birthday party. We were at the friend’s house who brought me the Groove book. Paige was still somewhat new to walking. One of her favorite places to toddle off to and explore is bed-side tables. They have fun little drawers it’s easy for little hands to open.

So as we’re in the kitchen chatting with some other parents, Paige staggers from the back of their house out into their living room and heads towards me with a violet-colored tube in her hand. Turns out it was our hosts’ Astroglide. Ahem.

Of course, those of us in the kitchen who saw what Paigey had poached found it uproarious. Funny enough to not sweep it under the so-called carpet, but to send Paige back across the guest-filled living room with instructions to hand the item over to its rightful owners.

Paige obliged. Much giggling and blushing and good-natured heckling ensued. Good times.

Thinking about that now, I can’t help but wonder if Paige was on to something. Was it really a random offering? Or was she trying to communicate in some childlike intuitive way, “This is what you people need. This is the answer!”

Now I’m not implying that Paige thinks I should have a romp with the dream-based wood shop teacher. There’s a time and place for people from The Land of Make Believe. I think she was maybe just making her own down-home suggestion about how us Mommies and Daddies could get our groove back.

I Love You, I Love You Not…

There’s been a cold snap here. Gray skies, biting winds. The children of the Bay Area have insufficiently-warm outerwear, and their parents are all thin-blooded wimps. During the day when we might normally be at the park, or on the front porch, or cruising around the neighborhood on bikes, or strollers, or the red wagon, we’ve been stuck inside, hiding from the cold.

I’ve loved it.

The girls and I have spent such sweet happy afternoons snugged up indoors. We’ve cooked elaborate feasts with wooden toy food, conducted tea parties with real cinnamon-laden victuals, and read countless books about Christmas. It’s been so freeing knowing that getting out of the house just isn’t an option. Usually once Paige wakes from her nap I’m on a madwoman’s mission to get everyone’s shoes on and diapers changed and bike helmets secured. Channeling my mother I bellow the rallying cry, “It’s a beautiful sunny day! Let’s get out of this house!” I’m a self-professed fresh air fetishist.

But lately we’ve been padding around in slippers. Assembling puzzles. Doing projects with Popsicle sticks. Digging to the back of the closet and finding long-neglected toys that the girls delight in reacquainting themselves with. And a couple times this sugar-stingy Mama has even thrown caution to the wind and whipped up a pot of hot chocolate.

All that plus streaming Pandora Christmas carols. Now this is living!

During one of these happy floor-dwelling moments, when Dr. Kate and I were injecting Paige with some pretend inoculation or other, I thought about our warm weather life. I dug up the following post, which I’d written last year (for pay!) for a wine company blog. The blog—which several woman across the country were hired to contribute to—sadly never emerged beyond the marketing firm’s conference rooms.

Aside from the contrast it shows to our current indoor existences at Camp McClusky, the post brought to life how mercurial my love for this city is. One minute I can’t imagine living anywhere else, and the next I’m calling Mark at his office to announce we are packing up and moving to a small town. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just not HERE.

I’m like a dramatic child lying in the grass plucking daisy petals. “I love you. I love you not….” The only difference being I’m not talking about a youthful crush, something it’s okay to be fickle about. In this case it’s where my husband, daughters and I live. My “I love you not” episodes have the ability to rock other people’s worlds much more intensely.

But today? This morning I’m still reveling in a lovely neighborhood party from last night. This afternoon the Mama Posse is taking our older kids to San Fran to see The Velveteen Rabbit, and there are cookies to bake before then.  I’m filled to the gills with the holiday spirit.

I’ve got love for all people, all places. Even Oakland.

So, despite the fact that our front porch has just been functioning as a pass-through these days, this old never-posted post still captures my current emotional reading on our little corner of the world.

The View from the Front Porch

This is the story about a woman in a strange city, with a new baby, and how a bottle of wine saved her. Or as it were, saved me.

But before we get to the wine, let me back up a bit.

At the time I was managing a complex jumble of major life changes. Like some guy in a lumberjack contest running to keep his balance on a log so he won’t fall in the water.

I was so busy wrangling with it all that I didn’t fully realize how much of it there was, until a few different friends commented on my excess of Major Life Stressors. Most people, they all said, could only handle two of those doozies at once. But there I was exceeding that quota. As if I had any choice.

And while I’m at it, what up with that whole “two big life stressors” urban-legend-like theory? It seems like one of those Ann Landers quizzes that circulated in high school. (You know, the one where your final score revealed if you were a slut or not?) In this case I picture it as being an actual list of Life’s Hugest Stress Triggers with checkboxes next to them. And the smart mortals only check two at a time.

Aaaaanyway, where was I? Exceeding my stress quota. Okay, so what I had going on was having just moved to a new city—just over the bridge from where I’d lived for 12 years, but still. Devoid of local friends and the ever-presence of my lived-just-five-blocks-away sister. It felt like worlds away. I feared I’d be offering monetary incentives to get our city friends to ever visit.

Other stressors: I’d taken an indefinite hiatus from my maniacal love-hate time-sucking career. I was mourning my mother’s recent death. And I just had my first baby.

Oh, and did I mention I’m not really one for change?

I handled it all swimmingly. Which is to say I nearly refused to conduct commerce in Oakland, driving to San Francisco with my dry cleaning and sometimes even to grocery shop. I seethed every time my sister asked about traffic before deciding to come by. And I rejected the social value of neighbors as friends since, well, they lived in Oakland. They were Oakland people and I, well, I was from San Francisco. And likely just passing through.

But thank God for sidewalks. Where our new neighbors imposed their friendliness upon us despite my cynicism and Urban Girl guard being up. A friendly wave from the lady across the street when I grabbed the morning paper drove me back in the house ranting, “What’s up with her? Does she stand there all day waiting to pounce on people with her chirpy hellos?”

I was resistant. But even I can be worn down.

Because when you are tired, and smattered in spit-up, and have already called your husband’s office seven times by noon desperate for adult conversation, even the freaky old neighbor ladies and their little yapping rat dogs start seeming kinda nice.

Oddly, the women my age—especially the mothers—I held further at bay. With their older children, I considered them to be professionals at the mom thing, where I felt like a newbie, a maternal imposter.

It wasn’t until one evening when a random sidewalk chat stretched out, and seemed silly to continue just standing there, that I invited one of those moms to take a seat on my front porch. And like some bad movie montage, where the calendar pages flip to show time passage, eventually we’d see each other, sit longer, chat more, pass off outgrown kid clothes, and watch as the hip-held babies interacted. It wasn’t until one evening—both bushed from grueling kid-tending and diving deeper into some conversation or other, that I offered up a glass of wine.

“Well,” she said, performing an etiquette dance that’d do her mother proud, “I don’t want to put you to any trouble… Do you have anything that’s open?”

“Yes!” I yelped, over-eagerly, thrilled by the prospect of an impromptu happy hour, a new friend to talk to while the babies lolled contentedly on a blanket by our feet. “I have something we opened last night,” I said, trying to tone down the mania in my voice. “No problem at all.”

At which point I went into the house, grabbed a bottle of chard from the fridge, opened it, dumped a bit in the sink, grabbed two glasses, and waltzed back out to the porch.

Sometimes you don’t know which cork it is that you should hold onto—which bottle of wine will mark something worthy of a saved-cork tribute. In retrospect I wish I had that one now.

It’s three years and another baby later. I can’t count the number of front porch hangouts I’ve hosted on the fly—or with much-anticipated planning—since that first one.

Nor can I count the number of times that after calling Mark to lament that maybe this wasn’t working (this me staying home with the kids thing), maybe I needed to go back to work, get the girls a nanny—that he’d come home a few hours later, to find me commandeering the front lawn sprinkler for a gaggle of sopping screaming kids. And Jennifer, and maybe Bob from down the block who works from home, or really any number of other stopped-by-on-their-way-past neighbors would be on the lawn or perched by the porch table, which was loaded with a hodge-podge of kid and adult-friendly snacks, sippy cups, and a bottle of unapologetically opened-just-for-the-occasion wine.

And here Mark walks into the scene, expecting to find me pouting inside, resentfully changing a diaper or playing my fourth game of Chutes and Ladders, but instead I’m half-soaked and laughing, on a totally different plane from the frustration and self-pity of just hours before. But, sweetheart that he is, he never calls me on it. He just greets the gang, goes in the house, drops his lap top bag and grabs a wine glass for himself.

Thank you thank you Universe for getting me past that hard lonely sad first chunk of time here. Thank you neighbors for not giving up on me. Thank you dear daughters for coming along on the ride where I figured out that being a mother doesn’t mean leaving all of person I used to be behind—that I can be responsible and grown-up and still have some fun.

To my beautiful family, my great city, and my groovy little street of friends—I raise my glass to you.

I think I finally feel like I’m from Oakland.