The Piano Man

For a good time, listen to Glenway at Coffee O in Woods Hole.
Every Sunday morning!
Will work for cookies.

song: The Piano Man • artist: Billy Joel

Non Je Ne Regrette Rein

An e-mail from a high school friend informed me he was working "in Brest at the moment."
Working in Brest? It's like a teenage boy's fantasy.
A teenage boy who can't spell that is.

song: Non Je Ne Regrette Rein • artist: Edith Piaf

Same Old Song and Dance

Last weekend was the annual ice show for the figure skating club. It was one of only a handful of shows in the past 35 years that I've attended as a sheer spectator and not been somehow involved in the performance. The first comment I want to make is about audience etiquette, which was, for the most part, decent. There wasn't a lot of talking, there was appropriate applause, and there was minimal amounts of people walking past and blocking the view of the ice. However, a word about seat saving. Firstly, a bouquet of flowers does not a saved seat make. At least put a little effort into it and spread out a blanket. Secondly, if your party cannot manage to arrive by the start of the first act, I think etiquette requires that they graciously forfeit their seats and allow the rest of us, who arrived a half-hour early, to spread out into the saved area.
Other observations concerned the performance itself. One thing that stood out was that my son was far more interested in watching the group numbers than the endless parade of features and solos that made up the bulk of the show. This wouldn't have crossed my mind before though it seems like a no brainer: what's more interesting, a whole lot of people skating around, or just one lone person skating around? If you'd asked me when I was 14 I'd have answered the soloist of course - isn't that the apex to which every young skater aspires? To have the spotlight on her alone? And when I was out there for my two minutes it would never have occurred to me that the entire audience might not be transfixed by my performance. That they might be busy unraveling a scarf or finding 12 cents in a spilled pile of popcorn or even leaving their seats to use the bathroom. However, even though, along with grandparents, they make up most of the audience, I guess four year olds weren't the demographic I was trying to impress back then.
And was it my imagination or were the axels a lot bigger when we were kids? I remember Anne Marie traveling in the air the length of half the rink. Well maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but jumps did seem a lot bigger. And the music was faster. We weren't all trying to be dramatic and give the most memorable interpretation of a Whitney Houston hit. I did it all the time in practice to Diana Ross, the Carpenters, and Dionne Warwick (hey, I'm not proud), but most of us chose more upbeat songs for the show. I know it seems like the most important two minutes of your life, it seemed that way to me, but still, skaters should try to have a little fun and remember the old adage - if everyone skates slow and dramatic, then no one skates slow and dramatic.
I downloaded "Trickle, Trickle" by the Manhattan Transfer off iTunes just to confirm that it was indeed a fast song - remember when Susie Beale skated to that?
Now that girls ice hockey has become mainstream I wonder too if figure skating has lost some of its more athletic skaters to the sport. Given the opportunity, would Susie, Jill, and Anne Marie have played hockey instead? There aren't any solos in a game of hockey, only two minute penalties, but there are college scholarships for female hockey players and that's got to provide some incentive. I can't say there's the same for figure skating.

song: Same Old Song and Dance • artist: Aerosmith

I'd Do it all Again

Repetition is part of every job. That's why Mary Poppins advocated whistling while you work - to take the edge off the repetition. Even in the seemingly relaxed world of the "supplement coordinator" there are the usual deadlines to contend with and the inevitable angry advertiser whose ice cream shop or camp ground was left out of a story.
When my son gets dressed in the morning he always asks me what he should do with his Pull-Up. I admire his optimism in believing that someday there might be an alternative answer to my usual response: "put it in the trash can."

song: I'd Do it all Again • artist: Shirley Bassey

Say, Say, Say

I don't understand - why, why, can't Uncle Wiggly speak the language of the boys and girls when he can understand what they are saying? It would make things so much easier.

song: Say Say Say • artist: Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson

Who Are You?

You know you're spending too much time at the computer when your 22-month old goes over to it, pats the mouse and says, "mee mee." That's toddler-speak for mommy.

song: Who Are You? • Artist: The Who

White Wedding

Today I brought a broken watch into the jewelry shop where we bought my wedding band almost eight years ago. It's possible I haven't been in this shop since having the ring engraved. I remember giving the information to the woman at the counter: kmg to jmb 10-2-99. She dutifully wrote down the information and then she turned to me, smiled sweetly and asked, "so dear, when is your wedding?"

song: White Wedding • artist: Billy Idol

You can Leave your Hat On

When a preschooler has two shirts on, a turtleneck and a sweatshirt for example, and it's tubby time and he has to undress, he can't get both shirts off at once. First he wrangles off the outer layer, getting his arms out and the body of shirt over his head. In the middle of this process there is a point of crisis when suddenly he realizes he can't get out of the shirt and he starts yelling for help. You come in and find him standing there with a sweatshirt over his head, the empty sleeves waving around as he flails about desperately trying to get out. He looks like a creature from Mummenshantz.

song: You can Leave your Hat On • artist: Tom Jones

Empty Garden

C and I planted radish seeds today. I planted mine in the raised garden bed while C scattered half of his seeds all over the yard on the way to the garden. It's probably too early for them but what's the worst that can happen - they don't come up? Like we haven't seen that before.

song: Empty Garden • artist: Elton John

sorry honey - a couplet

A decent haircut is more than dumb luck.
Your wife in charge ain't worth saving a buck.

Animal Crackers in My Soup

Remember those little boxes of animal crackers your mom used to give you in the supermarket to shut you up so she could get the shopping done? Back then they were about 25¢ a box; three for a dollar at most. Now they're $1.19 a box.
One nineteen a box? For that price I might as well let them split a rotisserie chicken while we shop.

song: Animal Crackers in My Soup • artist: Shirley Temple

Good Day Sunshine

I ran into my opthamologist today while walking on Main Street. I wasn't wearing my sunglasses and it was sunny. I was wearing my hat though so I was all set if only it had been my dermatologist instead.

song: Good Day Sunshine • artist: The Beatles

Do Right

South Carolina legislation wants to pass a law that would require women to view ultrasound images of their fetus before they can have an abortion. Great idea. But why stop there? Why wait until a woman's actually pregnant to saddle her with guilt? Why not take every woman of childbearing age and show them images of children already waiting for adoption? Surely those selfish women wouldn't go ahead and have children of their own knowing there are already children in need of parents.
Every decision we make has consequences. Perhaps every time I turn up the heat in my house I should have to look at family photographs of coal miners who've been killed on the job. Maybe next time I'm shopping around for a new television I should get a leaflet showing images of deformed children in China, victims of water tainted with cadmiun, led and mercury the results of the US sending a majority of its e-waste overseas. Instead of a menu at the drive thru they should play video footage of gastric bypass surgery or a slaughterhouse before you can order. I hear laying chickens are especially mistreated. Egg McMuffin anyone? Rainforest defoliation to go with that cup of coffee? Screening of Blood Diamond for every customer who enters Shreve Crump and Low?
Whether you think the idea is fabulous or absurd, the fact is we don't do these things do we? Well not usually. I was at a vegan restaurant run by Seventh Day Adventists in Portland last week where at the front counter they had vials filled with fat sporting labels like: hamburger 9 tsp. fat, fried chicken 3 tsp. fat. But generally speaking we don't go around reminding people of the unpleasant side of things. Unless of course we're taking about a pregnant women. Then it seems as if it's the governments responsibility to browbeat her even though it's insulting to presume she's not already fully aware of the consequences of her decision.
That's tonight's rant folks. Perhaps tomorrow we can talk about what's wrong with the law being proposed in Texas that would give woman $500 to have their babies and give them up for adoption. That's right. It's a baby bribe.

song: Do Right • artist: Paul Davis

Penny Lane

There are conversations that you expect to have with your children: what happens when you die? where do babies come from? why is smoking bad for you? why is the minister always talking about God? But what makes parenting really interesting is when you find yourself trying to explain completely off the wall things like why my son shouldn't take the coins from his piggy bank to school to give his friends.
And what exactly does "not appropriate" mean?

song: Penny Lane • artist: The Beatles

I'm Looking Through You

Why are the lights always so much brighter at other places that I don't notice my children have dirty faces, shirts, pants, you name it, until we are at the library, school, music class, or elsewhere, surrounded by other people and their clean children.

song: I'm Looking Through You • artist: The Beatles

Lost in the Supermarket

Writing the previous post made me reflect back to some of the other jobs I had before taking on my current occupation, which consists, among other things, of being available to wipe my sons butt when he calls from the bathroom.
When I was in college I would come home in the summer and work at the local supermarket. This was back in the day when supermarkets were more manageable, that is to say you didn't need a GPS to find your way around one.
One afternoon there was an electrical fire in the frozen foods section. It was mostly smoke but we all got to evacuate the building. It was the only time I ever saw the fire lane being used for its designated purpose.
We were all sitting out on the grassy hill to the immediate left of the parking lot with our orange smocks on when these people pulled up, observed us all lounging around outside, walked past the fire truck and headed towards the entrance of the store. "There's a fire," one of us orange smock-people called out helpfully.
"That's okay, we only need a few things," they answered.

song: Lost in the Supermarket • artist: the Clash

Nobody's Girl

Here's the thing, she thought: when you work outside the home you get a paycheck every week. That's an obvious truth; but along with the money often you accomplish something tangible. In a previous life she worked for a fishing magazine. At the end of every month a magazine was created. You could hold it, thumb through it, and cringe at mistakes that should have been corrected before the pages went to press. And then you would start all over again and at the end of the next four weeks there'd be another magazine.
When your job is to be at home with your kids, everything you do gets undone every day if not sooner. Pick up the living room and tomorrow it will be strewn with train tracks, plastic animals, and Duplo again. Clean the kitchen floor and no sooner is it dry then it's smeared with American cheese and Cheerios. Ditto for bedrooms. Make dinner and it gets eaten; do laundry and it gets dirty. There's nothing tangible about the job of parenting. Nothing to show your spouse at the end of the day. Nothing except that the kids are still alive which is pretty much a given.
I know people will offer to trade places with me in an instant, shake their heads, and wonder what I'm complaining about she thought. But usually something that saps your energy so thoroughly leaves you with something at the end of it - a paycheck - a magazine - an interesting story from the office - some evidence that you put in a full days work. This job doesn't. It's overwhelming and yet nonexistent at the same time. If the Peace Corps is the "Toughest Job You'll Ever Love" then staying home with your children is the "Toughest Job You'll Ever Have Nothing to Show For" she thought.

song: Nobody's Girl • artist: Bonnie Raitt

early spring haiku #2

cloudy afternoons
turn spring back into winter
where'd I leave my hat?

Wishin' and Hopin'

We broke a wishbone this afternoon. The same wishbone that got pulled apart after Thanksgiving but then glued back together after my son didn't quite grasp the concept of the wishbone and cried when he realized it was broken. Today he had no problem pulling it apart, and, he got the bigger piece. I guess the potential for having his wish granted out weighed the desire to keep an intact wishbone in his desk for all eternity. Now he wants to know exactly when he's going to turn into a dog.

song: Wishin' and Hopin' • artist: Dusty Springfield

early spring haiku

raking last year's leaves
up from the backyard garden
disturbs woolly bears

Holiday

The kids and I went to Maine earlier this week to visit my sister. I can’t recall what made me think taking a vacation alone with my kids would be a good idea, in retrospect it seems like insanity but we made it back alive to I guess all’s well that ends well as Shakespeare would say. Indeed, given the date, I should be quoting or misquoting Julius Caesar, so here goes: “Beware the long car-trip with your children.”
It wasn’t that it was awful, the hardest part was that they would not fall asleep at night. I expected the first night they would be too excited to fall asleep quickly but by 10PM their being excited was getting old. Finally I had to turn out all the lights and retreat into the bathroom to wait for them to finally nod off. Do you know what it’s like to sit on the bathroom floor of a hotel room reading the newspaper? It’s like being held hostage by your children. The second night though I thought they’d go right to sleep, having gone to bed late the night before and gotten up early that morning, but still it didn’t happen. At 9:30 my sister and I went out to sit in the hallway so they would sleep and we could still talk but C cried until we came back in and sat in the doorway with the entryway light on. Two grown adults held hostage by children. At least we didn’t both have to wait it out in the bathroom.
Being both the driver and navigator on this trip confirmed my suspicions that I’m capable of getting lost in a paper bag. Twice on the way to Spring Point Ledge Light I had to pull over and consult the giant DeLorme Map book. Twice! It’s a lighthouse for Pete’s sake! How difficult can it be to find a lighthouse? You drive towards the water until you can’t go any further and then look out over the horizon and there it is, big as life. I also missed the entrance to Portland Head Light by one road, I swear the sign said “next left.”
The Inn by the Bay was good enough to provide H with a crib. Having cribs available would lead one to believe that the hotel might also have appropriately-sized blankets as well; but either they don’t or I was suppose to order that separately. Faced with no blanket, the first night I covered him with the bedspread off my double bed. Had he enough energy, he could have taken it, tied one end to the crib, thrown the other out the window, and climbed down all five floors to the street. I didn’t use the bedspread the second night after my sister expressed concern he might suffocate. Instead I covered him with three large bath towels.
In the car, I was held hostage by the Bee Gees. I left their CD in the whole way up and the whole way back, not wanting to draw attention to the CD player by changing CDs or putting on the radio. I was afraid C would demand to know what other CDs I had and then I would be forced to tell the truth – that indeed I had brought the Uncle Wiggly CD. So it was the Bee Gees – eight full hours, minus 45-minutes towards the end of the trip when I turned it off and we sang “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” At one point “Massachusetts” came one, for the 20th time, and C exclaimed, “hey! He’s going back to Massachusetts and we’re going back to Massachusetts!”

song: Holiday * artist: The Bee Gees

My Wild Irish Rose

Darn these minor holidays. I made the mistake of cutting out some shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day; the valentines were getting tired and it was too early for Easter no matter what the Christmas Tree Shop would have you believe. So C decorated one and we hung it up in the dining room and now he keeps asking me when is St. Patrick's Day and how do we celebrate it. Do I tell him about the snakes in Ireland and the potato famine, or that here everybody gets drunk and sings off-key rounds of the unicorn song? A holiday that you celebrate by eating corned beef and cabbage just isn't very exciting in the eyes of a four year old.

song: My Wild Irish Rose • artist: Chauncey Olcott

A Reason to Believe

It looks as if I'm obsessed with signs this week.
Remember when I griped about people idling their cars. for what seems like hours on end? Well I found some kindred spirits in Maine. This sign is in the parking lot of a school in downtown Portland, and, there was a similar sign urging tour buses not to idle in the parking lot in front of the lighthouse at Portland Head. Yes, they both seem to focus on buses, but it's a start.

song: A Reason to Believe • artist: Rod Stewart

The Road Less Traveled

We took a lot of back roads on our way to Canada this past January. It was as if we were trying to sneak into their country or perhaps to test homeland security on the way back into to U.S.A. You get there faster on the highway but you miss all the good stuff. On a farmhouse just north of Newport, Vermont was a sign advertising "Antiques and Manure."
Bet they don't get a lot of people stopping for both those items in the same shopping trip.

poem: The Road Less Traveled • author: Robert Frost

Ice Ice Baby

It was a rough afternoon for little kids at our house. First C got hit square between the eyes with a wooden block thrown by his brother. I got ice. Then H fell and hit his head while jumping on his big brother's bed. Daddy came in and took over the consoling. Then C banged his head on the wall while running into the bathroom. I got ice.
Not to mention he also got two splinters in his hand while outside helping me rake leaves from the garden. He was too tired to remember about them tonight but tomorrow those will probably need ice too.

song: Ice Ice Baby • artist: Vanilla Ice

It's a Sign of the Times

There is a new sign at the hospital lights. What does it mean? Shouldn't symbols make something more clear and not merely leave one puzzled as the light turns green? Does it mean people might be crossing the street on their way to the hospital? Does it mean that first aid might suddenly be given to someone in the crosswalk? Does it mean that patients on their way to doctor appointments better stop thinking about their co-pays (is it $10 or $20?) and start paying attention to pedestrians in the crosswalk?
My best guess is that it's trying to say: Don't worry if you are caught in the elevator door, there is a hospital near by.

song: It's a Sign of the Times • artist: Petula Clark

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Thursday morning, for 90-minutes, I lost my wallet. Well I lost the little zippered purse that I use as a wallet. It was not in my pocket book, it was not in the book bag, it was not in the car, it was not in my coat pocket. It was nowhere. I panicked and called Ken at work. As if that would help, now he was panicked too. I asked my older son if he'd seen it.
"Oh that. Yeah. Nope. I haven't seen that."
My only hope was I'd left it at the little library Wednesday after we checked out books. Of course the little library isn't open on Thursdays so I had to call the main library and ask around for my "little library" friends. Deep down I knew that they didn't find my wallet because if they had, they would have opened it, found my license, and called me. I usually get phone calls from the little library several times a week since I "rent" all my movies through the CLAMS network. But I asked the question anyway, even though I already knew the answer. Cat was genuinely concerned. I knew she would be. She is so nice. We decided the wallet must have fallen out of the book bag in the back of the library near the story-time room, but my fear by now was that I'd left it on top of my car and driven off. I've lost sunglasses, a diaper bag (yes, a whole diaper bag), H's shoes, a hat, and various other objects off the roof of the car. That doesn't include the many times I've left my travel cup up there brimming with tea. It's a terrible habit but when buckle the kids in, there's nowhere else to put my stuff. This is why I feel bad for the dad who left his kid in the shopping cart at the Burlington Coat Factory. I'm not saying it's excusable, and if I wasn't a parent I wouldn't be able to understand it at all, but, I can see how it could have happened.
Back to the wallet. I got everyone dressed and out the door. By this time we'd missed music class because I couldn't get it together in time to go, not to mention I could never have concentrated through three verses of "Shoe a little horse, shoe a little mare, but let the little pony go bare, bare, bare" or any other kiddie songs. My plan now was to drive over to the library and check the parking lot for my wallet. I was even prepared to peep through the windows and look for a glimpse of it.
I opened the top glove compartment to fish out some lip gloss and there was the wallet - right on top. I'd checked the car twice! Twice! How could I not have opened this compartment?
Turning the car around, I drove home and called Ken. Then I called Cat so she and Laurie wouldn't be looking for the wallet on Friday. Cat said she appealed to St. Anthony on my behalf. Obviously, it had worked. Then I went back to the car and drove the kids to the little library anyway. It was 30-degrees out, warm enough to run them around the tennis courts for an hour.
So, it turned out that all I really lost was my morning - and a little bit of my mind.

song: I still haven't found what I'm looking for • artist: U2

prerequisite to a nap (a couplet)

While brother's in class we chase the ball
Up, down, and around the long, cold hall.

Guilty

Confessions of a guilty mother:

• I have turned up the car radio in order to drown out the sound of crying.
• I have let my son wear the same onesie three days in a row.
• My sons don't take baths every night.
• They have dirty fingernails right now.
• I have read bedtime books after drinking two glasses of wine and enjoyed them more then when I'm sober.
• I don't care whether or not my son can read in kindergarten.
• My children have eaten things off the floor long past the expiration of the five-second rule.
• I didn't love breast feeding.
• I weaned my second son after only 11 months.
• I had two c-sections.
• I've cheated at Trouble.
• The sand in our sandbox came from the beach.
• I've reset the timer to prolong quiet time.
• I've eaten more than my share of the chocolate-covered almonds.
• I threw out the remainder of the Halloween candy.
• Ditto the Valentine's Day candy.
• I think Uncle Wiggly is a bit of a namby pamby.
• I indulge my kids at the coffee shop and buy them Fresh Samanthas which cost more than my tea.
• I threw out some of the folded and stapled pieces of paper my son gave me as "birthday presents."
• My son walked into the wall while wearing his hat pulled down over his eyes and I laughed.
• Ken laughed too.

song: Guilty • artist: Barbra Streisand

a quatrain for liz

The rhyme of the day is meant for Liz
It's pretty short - this is all there is:
Joyeux anniversaire to my tres bonne amie!
How I await your return to the big city!

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Last night I finished reading The Devil Wears Prada. It reminded me very much of The Nanny Diaries. A morally upstanding, witty, and fun woman in her early 20s ends up working for the female boss from hell and the job takes over her life. Both stories are funny in what we hope are exaggerated descriptions of how these shrewish women make life hellish for our young and optimistic heroines. In both stories the protagonist escapes with her integrity in tact, but the books are unsatisfying in that the evil boss never actually sees the error of her ways. Yeah sure, we're comforted by the fact that money doesn't buy you happiness. The boss will forever remain small-minded, friendless, and joyless. But I really wanted the boss to change, to grow, to say, "Yes, Andrea, you're right, I am a terrible person, I have no friends, I'm shallow, I treat people horribly." And then to see them somehow get better.
What is up with that? Why do I care? Why don't I just want the evil witch to go down? I do want them to go down, I was happy Andrea told Miranda, "f-ck you" although it seemed out of character since she hadn't uttered that phrase anywhere else in the book. Beyond that though, I wanted Miranda, and Mrs. X, to come back up changed people.
Perhaps I'm softening with age and trying to see both sides of the equation. Maybe it strikes a chord with my women's college upbringing. Aren't the authors propelling their female protagonists forwards at the expense of these other women? Haven't the authors created stereotypes of the worst kind? Why are these women the enemy? Aren't they just victims of a system that assumes women can't hold positions of power unless they wear a dress-size of zero and behave like battle-axes?
Or perhaps I'm just taking a beach read too seriously.

songs: Why Can't We Be Friends? • artist: War

You're the One That I Want

Last week I wrote a post card to Jude Wilbur, someone I've never met - well maybe I met him once, outside the main post office. Anyway, in the postcard I suggested he run for selectman again this spring. Then I stuck the card inside a library book, forgot about it, and promptly slid the book through the book drop. This means that either it fell out and the people at the library were good enough to put it in their outgoing mail (it was stamped), or it's tucked away inside some shelved book waiting to be discovered by some unsuspecting library patron. Now I feel that it is unlikely Mr. Wilbur reads this blog given that he's not a relative nor one of my coworkers. But if it's true that only six degrees of separation exists between myself and every other person in the world, then one of you might know Mr. Wilbur and be able to pass along this message. Come on Jude, run! The town needs you!
And while I'm on the subject: Al Gore in 2008!

song: You're the One That I Want • soundtrack: Grease

Vacation

I tried to get to bed before midnight last night. Conserving my energy is a new priority since C is off from school for the next two weeks. A vacation from pre-school - how funny is that?

song: Vacation • artist: The Go-Gos

Windy

Over the past decade and a half I have amassed a collection of floaty pens from various locations. What's a floaty pen you ask? They are the novelty pens, that, when tipped sideways, some tiny image moves across a little background, say the Eiffel Tower floating across Paris, or Elvis's pink cadillac floating in front of Graceland. Part of the rules of collecting, my special rules, is that you can never go into a store, approach the cashier and ask outright if they have floaty pens or not. You must hunt them down on your own. The search for floaty pens is part of the fun. They are often in the most cheesy of tourist shops, right up by the cash register. I can breeze through a souvenir shop and know in under 30 seconds if they sell floaty pens. Airport gift shops are good bet for finding floaty pens. They're usually right there with the souvenir shot glasses and those little spoons my mother used to collect. I used to insist that all the floaty pens be from places I'd gone to myself, but recently, in the past five years or so, most of the additions to my collection have come from other people's travels.
Thankfully I still have some friends who travel, even to places like Wichita, Kansas. Joan just got back from a business trip there and brought me my favorite souvenir. The image is of a tornado funnel whirling past what must be the Wichita skyline, sucking up in its wake: a tree, a cow, a truck, a wind turbine, and, a barn.
I wonder if the Wichita Chamber of Commerce has seen these. Do they really want to put the image of a tornado, something that screams out "national state of emergency" on their tourist products? I could see if it had a Wizard-of-Oz-type theme but this one did not. Just your ordinary - run of the mill - everybody in the cellar - tornado.
It would be like showing an image of a hurricane battering boats up against a rock jetty with the words "Welcome to Cape Cod" emblazoned on a floaty pen. For the record, the pen I have of Cape Cod has some sailboats breezing past an image of Nobska Light.


song: Windy • artist: The Association

No Anchovies Please

Nowhere but at a preschool pot luck dinner would a pan of plain pasta with no sauce be among the main entrees.

song: No Anchovies Please * artist: J. Giles Band

cerhliew for Dr. Seuss on his birthday

The distinguished Dr. Seuss,
drew fanciful animals obtuse.
His rhymes sublime
kept rythum and time.
Not like this tribute of mine.

parenting quatrain

on the last day of february i reflect
that parenting saps won's intellect.
though eye wasn't exactly brilliant be4
it seems I don't no nuthin' no more.

Teach Your Children

Boston College was one of the schools I applied to when I was a senior in high school. I was not accepted. Though if I had been, despite the shocking similarity between her first name and my last name, you can bet I wouldn't have stabbed a dorm mate over laundry. Too bad they didn't put that on the application.

song: Teach Your Children • artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

Fat Bottomed Girls

Some songs, no matter how much you like them, can never be played in front of your kids. "Fat Bottomed Girls" for example.

song: Fat Bottomed Girls • artist: Queen

She Drives Me Crazy

I went into the service department to get the car forgetting H covered my skirt in stickers this morning, though I don't think Crystal, the receptionist, noticed. They had washed the car, $650 for a 30,000-mile tune-up, gets you a free car wash. I was mortified to see that I had left a pair of tights, socks, and other clothing strewn about the front passenger seat, as if I live in the car. I was still thinking about that, wondering whether the socks were clean, when I went the wrong way out of the parking lot and ended up on the dead end row of new cars where I had to execute a three-point turn to get out.
I wonder if Crystal saw that.

song: She Drives Me Crazy • artist: The Fine Young Cannibals

Running Down the Road

The car had to be taken in this morning for service at the Subaru dealership on MacArthur Blvd. My husband set the alarm for 6:15, drove the car to the shop and then ran home. Last night I suggested we take it in after dinner but he said no, this would be easier. How many people do you know who think that it's easier to drop off a car at the shop, run the ten miles home, shower and go to work, than to drop the car off the night before?
Then of course I complained that I had to get my dad to drive me out to pick it up this afternoon. Couldn't you just run back out there after work?

song: Running Down the Road • artist: Arlo Guthrie

I Started a Joke

"Mommy, why are you always serious?" my son asked today. I was making dinner when I should have been putting a puzzle together with him.
Always serious?
What about yesterday when I wore the tiger mask and chased H around the hallway upstairs?
What about when we all played monkey in the middle in the dining room before dinner last night?
How about tonight when he pretended he was a sea lion in the tub and I, as the zookeeper, threw him plastic fish to eat?
Or today when I helped him find animal pictures and pencils so he could prepare his Uncle Wiggley puppet show - which I later sat on the couch and watched?
What about when I took digital pictures of him yesterday with the cat lying across him arm?
Or when I pretended I didn't know where he was when he was hiding under his brother's crib?
Didn't I pull him and his brother down to the end of the street in the sled on Friday, at least until he decided he wanted to pull the sled himself?
What about today when I let them crawl under me like a bridge while I was in down dog pose?
Didn't I use silly voices when reading "Little Red Hen" and "Lazy Jack" tonight?
Didn't I sing my bad rendition of "Light My Fire" when he and Ken lit a fire tonight in the living room and an even worse rendition of John Travolta's "Sandy" to his stuffed bunny of the same name?
I'm always serious. Get real.

song: I Started a Joke • artist: Bee Gees

Teddy bear, teddy bear (a remix)

Teddy bear, teddy bear, spin around
Teddy bear, teddy bear, fall on the ground

Teddy bear, teddy bear, make some noise
Teddy bear, teddy bear, throw your toys

Teddy bear, teddy bear, catch the ball
Teddy bear, teddy bear, run down the hall

Teddy bear, teddy bear, time for bed
Teddy bear, teddy bear, shake your head

Teddy bear, teddy bear, say good night
Teddy bear, teddy bear, not without a fight.

Losing My Religion

I read The Man Who Walked Between the Towers to C Thursday night. He chose it from the little library based on recognizing it from a poster we have of Caldecott-award-winning children's books. The book is about Philippe, a street performer who strings a cable between the twin towers in 1974 and does an early morning high wire act before being discovered and arrested.
On the second to last page of the book there's the sentence, "Now the towers are gone." The last pages talks about the memory of the towers and of Philippe's walk.
My son immediately picked up on this.
"Why are they gone?"
"They fell down."
"How did they?"
"There was a fire."
He would not let up. He wanted to know how they got on fire so I lamely tried to explain that some "bad men" started the fire.
"Why did they?"
This segued into a talk about how sometimes people are afraid of other people who are different from themselves and how sometimes we just don't know why other people do the things they do.
Then he wanted to know how the bad men got the building on fire and because I'm not a creative enough liar I had to tell the truth, which led to an entirely new discussion about how airplanes and cars can explode if they crash into things.
Then we went upstairs and said goodnights but I could tell he was still pondering it.
"I don't know why someone would want wreck down a building," he said as I turned out the light.
"Neither do I."
"I hope someone got those bad men in jail."
On Friday I had a check up with my dermatologist and I complained to her that I was loosing more hair than usual. It's all over my sweatshirts, the kid's sweaters, the back of my chair at work. Dr. Barnett seemed to think it was stress related though she did send me off for a blood test just to be sure.
Since then, I've been chewing over the stress factor. Have I been more stressed out this year than last year? Now I'm not sure if my hair is falling out from external stresses or from the internal stress of wondering whether I'm stressed out or not. She mentioned things like getting divorced or moving to a new house. These are the kind of big-stress events that would cause ones hair to fall out. Not the normal everyday stresses of wondering what I should do with the rest of my life or of having to explain the events of 9/11 to a four-year old.

song: Losing my Religion • artist: R.E.M.

How Do You Do?

Today's Enterprise featured a photo of the razing of Jake's Tap. I recall only being inside Jake's once, but my dad could be found there regularly when I was growing up. He especially liked to run off to Jake's on the night the family assembled the Christmas tree. I say assembled because we had a fake tree for as far back as I can remember. Part of the tree tradition was my dad leaving to go to Jake's. What could be less festive than your dad heading out to the neighborhood bar, leaving you, your mom, and your little sister at home putting your Christmas tree together (blue branches in the bottom trunk holes, red ones on top)? We thought it was all rather funny actually; it wasn't your usual tradition, but it was our tradition.
Reporter Christopher Kazarian quoted Henry Peters as saying this about Jakes: "That is where my father met my mother, right here."
Someday some young reporter will record my kids saying the same thing when they level the Captain Kidd in Woods Hole. "That's were my mom met my dad," C will say, "right there under the TV at the end of the bar. My mother always hated TV."

song: How Do You Do? • artist: Mouth and MacNeal

You Needed Me

The hospital thrift shop has a habit of trying to entice shoppers by putting some of their larger pieces of merchandise outside on the shop's front lawn. People waiting at the lights can mull over whether or not they need a new captain's chair or ironing board. Many times accessories for children are among the goods displayed.
This morning there were four items: a bouncy chair, an infant car seat, an umbrella stroller, and, a walker. Not a walker for children mind you, a walker for older adults. It was such an ironic juxtaposition of items. Perhaps the ladies who run the hospital thrift shop were trying to convey that life comes full circle. You need all these contraptions to help you as a baby and similar devices to assist you when you're older. Maybe they thought people might see it as one-stop shopping, something for the baby shower and the visit to grandma's house. It reminded me of the Sesame Street song where they used to show kids pictures of an apple, a banana, an orange, and, a bicycle and sing: One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others by the time I finish my song?

song: You Needed Me • artist: Anne Murray

Candy

Last night I threw out what was left of my son's Halloween candy. I actually felt guilty throwing it away - not because he might find out and get mad, he's still young enough to have entrusted the candy to my care and naive enough to believe me if I tell him he already finished it. No, I felt guilty for throwing food away. As if Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and mini Snickers bars could be defined as real food. I considered bringing it in to the office for my coworkers, but sorry you guys, I thought better of it. Besides, there's only six more weeks until Easter. Jelly bean anyone?

song: Candy • artist: Iggy Pop

House at Pooh Corner

song: House at Pooh Corner • artist: Loggins and Messina

You Can't Always Get What You Want

We left the kids with the babysitter and went out tonight. Last time we were out just the two of us we noted that it had been so long between nights out that the menu in our favorite restaurant had been redesigned. This time wasn't as dramatic though we did notice that we only recognized one person on the wait staff - of course it wasn't Thursday which used to be our regular night.
The last time we left the kids with a baby sitter C stood by the front door crying hysterically while we pulled out of the driveway. This time he barely looked up. He was in the living room completely engaged in conversation with Paige.
To tell the truth I'm not sure which I prefer.
We always want it both ways don't we?
We don't want a scene, we want to know they can live without us; and yet we do so want to be acknowledged, to be validated, to know that we are important, at least for a little while longer.

song: You Can't Always Get What You Want • artist: The Rolling Stones

We are the Champions

Check it out! Daddy's on YouTube!

song: We are the Champions • artist: Queen

Honey

song: Honey • artist: Bobby Goldsboro

Nothing Happened Today

Some people probably wonder what stay-at-home moms do all day. Here's a glimpse from last week.
3PM: Post blog entry written last night.
3:05: Get C more glue for special valentine project.
3:09: Decide to make pasta and chick peas for dinner.
3:15: Run dishwasher, negating energy karma points earned by hanging out laundry earlier in the day.
3:15: Make mental note that we have three bunches of bananas hanging in laundry room. Will need to make banana bread this week.
3:20: Get more glue and toothpicks for special valentine
3:30: Explain to C why "shut up" isn't a polite phrase.
3:35: E-mail free lance writers regarding story that won't be running in upcoming supplement and address request.
4:00: Play checkers with C.
4:10: H wakes up from nap. Change stinky diaper
4:30: Win checker game.
4:31: Start second game of checkers.
4:40: C excused to the bathroom, takes H with him.
4:50: Win second game of checkers by default, H distracted by wanting to play with his penny whistle.
4:50: Feed cat.
4:55: Get out mop. Water on the floor courtesy of H.
5:00: Empty dishwasher. Cajole C into putting away the silverware.
5:10: Put in book on tape: The Smallest Cow in the World.
5:15: Play catch with H.
5:25: Get out mop. More water on the floor courtesy of H.
5:27: Notice that broom is in the living room. Return it to laundry room.
5:30: Call Judi and offer to pick her up for book club.

song: Nothing Happened Today • artist: The Boomtown Rats

I Write the Book

Have you ever read the Acknowledgements at the end of a novel or work of nonfiction? I'll never be able to write a book. I don't know that many people.

song: I Write the Book • artist: Elvis Costello

Dream a Little Dream of Me

When I leave his room after good nights my son always asks me to remember my dreams so I can tell them to him in the morning. In exchange he promises to tell me his dreams. Studies show that children his age dream about animals 60% of the time, but I don't bother to tell him this.
I almost never remember my dreams. Sometimes it seems like I lie down and don't sleep at all, I just segue from running down the list of things I didn't get done today straight into the list of things I need to get done for tomorrow, and then it's time to make breakfast. Last night though I had two dreams I remembered.
In the first we were all at some kind of road race. I think it was one of those ultra marathons because we were provided with our own little cardboard shack house on the edge of a large track.
In the second dream we went to visit friends in Woods Hole and their entire house was being gutted. There were stacks of two by fours and plywood all over the place. We barely know these people in real life and have never been guests in their home. Isn't that always the way? We dream about people that we seemingly don't give a second thought to during the course of being awake. At the house were our kids, and the children who lived in the house, and, for some reason, other random children kept coming in and out of the house. I couldn't concentrate on the conversation because I kept loosing H among all the plastic tarps, plywood, and debris.

song: Dream a Little Dream of Me • artist: The Mamas and the Papas

You Win Again

Friday morning my son was up and downstairs before me. He had breakfast with Ken and was ready to go the minute I arrived on the scene.
"What to play Trouble?"
"Mommy's going to make a cup of tea and have something to eat first."
"Who's going to play with me?"
"Maybe you could play with your stuffed animals."
"I want to play with a real person."
Finally he decided he could play Trouble in the living room with Eco - his stuffed turtle, which was great except he kept giving me play by play of the game, yelling things like "Eco rolled a six!" and "I sent Eco home!" and on and on. This made me feel: a) annoyed because it distracted me from reading the paper, and at the same time, b) guilty for not playing with him in the first place.
At least he ended up beating Eco.

song: You Win Again • artist: The Bee Gees

Pencil Thin Mustache

Some people spend their lives searching for that perfect, special someone. Me, I spend a lot of time searching for the perfect writing instrument.
The right pen actually helps me write. It enhances the mood. If the words are a physical pleasure to write and I like the way they look on the page, then it helps me care about what the words say.
Before I had kids, quit my full-time job, and achieved international fame for writing this blog, I used to be a graphic designer. I studied graphic design just before the industry became computer driven. Perhaps that's when the search for the perfect pen began.
Sometimes when the perfect pen is not available, the next best thing is a well-sharpened pencil - a #2 soft.
The perfect pen varies from job to job. For example, if I need to write a check, it's blue ink. If I'm correcting a story draft, it's red ink. For journal and letter writing, it's a black felt tip.
There's really no good reason to use plain black ink. All those pens should just be put back into the office supply closet to be used by someone with lower ink standards.
The writing line has to be even and unbroken. What ever happened to those "erasable" pens that came out back in high school? You could erase it sure, but you never got a consistent line, it was always getting broken up; and if you rubbed the paper sometimes the ink would just flake right off. Good riddance I say.
The thickness of the pen body is important. It has to fit comfortably in the hand. Not many do. Again, it depends on the job. The pen that's kept inside the checkbook can have a very thin body, that way it stays put without making the checkbook too bulky. A pen that's too thin eventually gets uncomfortable in the hand because you have to grasp with too much pressure to keep a hold of it. But no novels are being written with the checkbook pen so it doesn't matter, whereas a comfortable pen is critical if one is about to sit down and pen a letter to a distant friend.
Remember the old stationary store on Main Street where you could buy individual felt tip pens and markers? There were lots of them to choose from, in all sorts of colors and thicknesses. They were all on display so you could test them out and see how they felt in your hand before making that crucial final decision and plunking down 79¢ for a LePen. I loved standing before the seemingly endless selection of felt-tip markers. Now we have to buy pens in packages of 10 or more, all exactly the same, all hermetically sealed. "Little Boxes" as Pete Seeger would say.
Make no mistake, I'm very attached to my computer and a die-hard Mac enthusiast, but there's no tactile pleasure or satisfaction in the perfect keyboard.

song: Pencil Thin Mustache • artist: Jimmy Buffett

By My Baby

I hear that Barack Obama isn't really black.
Have I mentioned that Ken is the father of Anna Nicole's baby?

song: Be My Baby • artist: The Ronnettes

Only the Good Die Young

Logan's Run. I was just thinking about that movie the other day. I wasn't thinking about it a lot, mind you. Not as much as I think about Peter and the Wolf or what's for dinner. It was more along the lines of, "I wonder why they never show Logan's Run on AMC? It's equally as good a movie as Scarface." And then, voila! it's going to be on TCM tomorrow night at 9:15!
I remember watching Logan's Run on more than on occasion with my cousins, Christine, Karen, and Maureen. It was probably in the late 70s, maybe as late as 1980. I would have been ten or twelve, that seems about right. There we all were watching a movie about people who, "could have anything - except their 30th birthday," back when being 30 was an eternity away. We were probably all thinking, "death at 30 - what's the big deal? They led a full life. Who wants to live to be older than 30 anyway?"

song: Only the Good Die Young • artist: Billy Joel

All Cried Out

They both have colds now. My older son claims that he got the cold from his younger brother the other night when we were all on the love seat and H threw his head back, hitting C in the nose. As if there's a lot of transferable germs on the back of my baby's head.
It used to be that the cure for every bump was the magic kiss from mom or dad. Now the cure is ice. H hits his head all the time. He is a casualty of our mission-style couch. He'll have barely started crying and his big brother is running off to the freezer for ice.
Tuesday night C swung around without looking and got hit on the side of the head by a metal taxi cab car that H was holding. He was inconsolable until I offered to get him some ice. Then he played with the ice inside the plastic bag until he poked a hole in it and got water all over the sofa.

song: All Cried Out • artist: Dusty Springfield

What's Going On?

Sometimes I really miss being in the office. I miss the general convivial banter about the news of the day, otherwise known as gossip. I know the adage about gossip: "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people," but we can't be figuring out ways to save the planet all the time and besides Eleanor Roosevelt, to whom this quote is attributed, probably never had a 40-hour-a-week, nine-to-five, desk job.
So, for the record, I'm thinking of running for president, and Ken is really the father of Anna Nicole's baby.

song: What's Going On? • artist: Marvin Gaye

Come Fly With Me

So I've been thinking about this (perhaps a bit too much), and the whole premise of Peter and the Wolf doesn't make sense. First the duck and the bird tease one another by saying "what kind of bird are you if you don't swim?" and conversely, "what kind of bird are you if you don't fly?" Then the duck gets eaten by the wolf precisely because she can't fly.
Who ever heard of a duck that can't fly?

song: Come Fly With Me • artist: Frank Sinatra

Hungry Heart

Nothing says "I love you" like a heart-shaped pancake.

song: Hungry Heart • artist: Bruce Springsteen

valentine's day haiku

Rock salt and chocolates
Saint Valentine's Day storm front
For those who love snow

Three Times A Lady

I have three hemp skirts, all floor length, all in what one might call "earth tones." I wear them almost exclusively three seasons out of the year. Having three skirts that all look the same reminds me of the scene in the remake of "The Fly" when Geena Davis arrives at Jeff Goldblum's house to interview him and he's got a closet full of suits, all identical. He explains to her that Einstein or some other genius - someone who doesn't end up crossing his DNA with a fly - used to do the same thing. The idea being, less time thinking about what to wear equals more time to solve the world's problems.
Me, it just helps to get a leg up on my kids in the morning.
Upon close inspection, though the skirts all appear to be the same, there are differences. The green skirt is the longest. It will actually drag on the ground unless I roll the waist band up. The blue skirt by comparison is shorter. The maroon skirt has a slit up the side which prevents me from wearing it with a slip. It also has a drawstring instead of an elastic waist. Once when C was an infant, I was carrying him up the stairs when the drawstring untied. I couldn't reach down to pull it up because I was holding a baby so all of a sudden I found myself standing on the stairs with my skirt around my ankles wondering if this type of thing happens to other new mothers.

song: Three Times A Lady • The Commodores

I Will Remember You

It looks as if my son is no longer planning to save me from the grim reaper. The other day he left my room with a big fistful of hair from my hairbrush. When I asked him about it he said that he was saving it to remember me by after I died.

song: I will remember you • artist: Sarah McLachlan

Take Good Care of my Baby

While we were up in Quebec and C and I had split from Ken and H to check out the ice house and snow sculptures, some woman reprimanded Ken for having brought H outside in the cold weather.
To be sure, H was wearing tiny toddler thermals, long johns, ski pants, a onesie and fleece sweater under the ski coat, hat, gloves, boots and a neck warmer. He was better prepared for the weather than his father.
It never ceases to amaze me when that happens. People seem to feel they are rightly qualified to freely give fathers their two-cents worth. Ken has been out with the kids and has been told by well-intentioned buttinskies that his baby was hungry, tired, and shouldn't be holding that butter knife (okay, that one was probably justified).
I, on the other hand, have never been approached by anyone offering unsolicited advice about how to clothe, soothe, or feed my children.
How are we suppose to encourage fathers to be more active in their children's lives when the message everyone seems to want to send is that we think they are all idiots who don't know how to properly dress their children for cold weather?

song: Take Good Care of my Baby • artist: Bobby Vinton

Superstition

I didn't even say the words out loud. Yesterday, while driving to work, I was just thinking that the kids hadn't been sick much this winter compared to last year when we were at the pediatricians every other week. This morning H slept until 10:30 and woke up sneezing a river of nose goopies. I should have pulled over and knocked on wood.

song: Superstition • artist: Stevie Wonder

Dead Flowers

How ironic. There is a dead plant on my desk. I should not be writing spring home and garden stories.

song: Dead Flowers • artist: The Rolling Stones

Tea for Two

Every morning I make tea. This has been a routine ever since I stopped working full time four-and-a-half years ago, so you'd think I'd have it down to a science by now. Alas no. I always seem to put the kettle on and then forget about it entirely. Ultimately I end up in some other part of the house entrenched in an activity I can't disengage from, usually a diaper change, when the kettle goes off. The whistling used to inspire my older son to scream "tea!" at the top of his lungs but now he just screams. His younger brother does the same. Thus my morning cup of tea, a ritual usually steeped in the notion of relaxation, commences with bedlam.
Today I ran into my next-door neighbor at Coffee O, (I was getting the day's second cup of tea), and she remarked that her dogs had been barking more than usual this morning and she hoped I hadn't heard them. Over the normal 9AM chaos in my house? To put it in British terms: not bloody likely.

song: Tea for Two • musical: No, No, Nanette

If I Fell

My son wants us to get a tent so we can sleep out in the yard this summer. I'm all for this, I even want to move up from backyard camping to actual campground camping, or join the AMC and sleep in those huts, whichever we get around to first. C specifically requested that we get a tent with a zipper so no skunks will be able to get in. Another excellent suggestion. He further explained that we need a zipper on the tent because, and I quote, "just in case a big tree in the backyard falls over on us, we'll be okay."
A zipper will protect us from falling trees? Who knew? Perhaps he'd like to explain that to our insurance agency, which is no longer providing home insurance coverage on the Cape.

song: If I fell • artist: The Beatles

What Was I Thinking?

According to my Google homepage there are currently 3,181 articles on the web about NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak, so I figure - what's one more?
Having recently turned 39, I've done some reflecting on how I've spent the past 40 years of my life. Have I lived up to my full potential? Well, if my full potential was to be a full-time mom and part-time writer/supplement coordinator at a local newspaper than things are going pretty well. I never did one of those What Color is Your Parachute-type quizzes so I'm unsure what my full potential actually might be.
It's possible I could have gotten a higher degree, moved to the city, tried for a better job. Sure, I could have done more.
But at least I can say that I haven't embarrassed myself, my friends, my family and my employers and coworkers - at least I haven't yet - which is more than I can say for Ms. Nowak despite her degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a masters in aeronautical engineering.
According to the Houston Chronicle Ms. Nowak "chose a juggling act of dauntingly high difficulty" as an astronaut and mother of three. As a mother of only two I can't speak from experience but I'm fairly sure that any job, coupled with mothering three children, would be a task of high difficulty and lest you all think I'm coming down too hard on Ms. Nowak that same article quotes an acquaintance of Ms. Nowak as saying "what the hell was she thinking?"

song: What Was I Thinking? • artist: Four Bitchin' Babes

How Long is Too Long

Ken had Monday off so we all went to the downtown post office to apply for H's passport. I didn't intend for this to be the only thing I got done all day but that's how it turned out. When applying for a child's passport, both parents have to appear to sign the application in front of a post office official so they know that one parent isn't trying to steal the child and take him or her out of the country.
It started with us needing to wait in line to get the mail that had piled up while we were out of town. A postman brought out one stack and then said he would go back and check on whether or not there was more. We waited, but he was gone a long time. Another postman came over to ask if we needed help. We explained that our helper had disappeared and that in fact we needed a passport photo. The second postman scowled slightly and went away. The first postman came back without any more mail for us. We explained we needed to file an application for a passport and he went away again. Later I saw him out in the parking lot moving orange cones.
Meanwhile C entertained himself by chatting up everyone who came into the post office, asking them about the quality and quantity of their mail.
The post office is equipped with a camera and a white projection screen for the express purpose of taking passport photos, the only problem is that no one at the post office knows how to operate the camera. A woman came over and made two attempts in which H came out blurry and off centered in both. After that we gave up and left to go to Ortins for the photo but before going we signed on all the pertinent lines so Ken could leave and do other errands. Did I mention it was freezing out? It was. I shelpped the kids back to the car, parked behind Eastmans, and drove to Ortins where C complained that he didn't want to get out of the car and I had to convince him that staying in the car by himself wasn't an option. We go into Ortins and the store is completely empty, no customers, no staff, no one. Beth must have been at the bank. We waited a long time. I could have made off with armfuls of I Love Lucy mugs and Elvis key chains. Finally Gary, the man behind the curtain, came out and in only one try, took a perfect passport photo of H. We pay, leave, and schlepp back to the car. Back inside the post office it's now noon and a large line has formed. C went back to making small talk with post office patrons. H started screaming which got up moved right up to the front of the cue. I handed over the photos and the postman said all that's left is to pay the fees. I said fine and handed over my credit card but alas, no credit cards for the purchase of a passport. We all went back to the car, again parked behind Eastmans, where I retrieved the check book from the glove compartment. Then there was more arguing with C about whether he could or couldn't stay in the car (he couldn't). I went back to the post office, frozen children in tow, to close the deal. This time we went straight to the head of the line without even pretending to be polite.
Afterwards, we three went to Coffee O to celebrate our accomplishment with chai and hot chocolate.

song: How Long is Too Long • artist: The Partridge Family

As Time Goes By

In the olden days (before kids) when I was the passenger on long, and even not-so-long car trips, my only responsibility was to read the map. Occasionally I had to hand Ken his sunglasses or open a bottle of Gatorade but that was about all that was required of me.
That was then. Here's the job of the mom on a two day, eight hour, car ride to Quebec. I'm responsible for doling out snacks (seemingly constantly), playing endless games of tic-tac-toe, adjusting the radio to either the front or back seat depending on whether we're listening to CBC or Big Ryan's Tall Tales, putting all of H's books back into his book bag a half-dozen times, reading the Map Quest directions, playing I Spy, guessing what C's drawn on his MagnaDoodle and then drawing something for him to guess, handing Ken Gatorade, answering the question "When will we be in Quebec," at least 50 times per day and the question "when will it be Mommy's turn to drive," another 20.
For this I got a crayon-written message (which I had to dictate proper spelling) that read "Get Well Mommy." A reference to my appendix operation of three-and-a-half weeks ago, which I will of course keep forever.

song: As Time Goes By • movie: Casablanca

a poem by ken

mommy and baby were were up in quebec
and did not hear the yell – "hit the deck"
they were walking about enjoying the town
when all of the snow came tumbling down
they did not dodge to the left or the right
but instead just froze and looked up in great fright
it came off the roof in a great big white clump
and hit mommy and baby with a big giant thump
baby was fine from his head to his toes
because he was sheltered by mommy's big nose

Don't Stop the Carnival

We call this photo: after the carnival.

song: Don't Stop the Carnival • artist: Harry Belafonte

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

The last thing we had planned before leaving Quebec on Friday was a final ride down the toboggan run. Well Ken and C were going on the toboggan run, I was suppose to stand at the bottom and document the event with our new digital camera, and H was going to watch boats navigate the ice-filled St. Lawrence River. It would have gone off okay except that at the crucial moment H fell into a snow bank and started crying and a man came and stood right in front of me as Ken and C came swooshing down the toboggan run.
As if that wasn't enough, while we were walking to the parking garage, a chunk of snow slid off the roof of the Chateau Frontenac and hit me in the nose å la Marcia Brady. I knew I should have grabbed a handful of Kleenex on my way out of the hotel, a good mother always has Kleenex in her pocket; but I didn't so I had to borrow some from Ken and tilt my head way back so I would bleed all over the white winter coat, guaranteed to -20F, that I'd borrowed from Joan. Then I couldn't get into the bathroom in the hotel lobby because we'd already checked out of our room and therefore my credit card key didn't work in the restroom door. Seems to me if you've got a lobby full of expensive boutiques, which the public are allowed and encouraged to shop in, the public should also be allowed to use the facilities. Thankfully an exiting customer let me in so I could clean up. Then I had to stick a snowball on my nose so it wouldn't swell up, which made C declare that he wanted a snowball for his nose as well.
Oh, and did I mention it was also my 39th birthday?

song: Hit Me With Your Best Shot • artist: Pat Benatar

Cover Me

The next winter olympics should include a dressing-children-for-sub-zero-temperatures event. Each team would get one child, preferably an unruly 20-month old, and a suitcase full of clothing: one set of thermal underwear (tops and bottoms), a turtle-neck onesie, a fleece sweatshirt, jacket, sweatpants, snow pants, socks, boots, mittens, and a neck warmer.
In the first round, teams of two would have to dress the child while being timed from start to finish. Points are lost if it turns out the boots have been put on the wrong feet or if the child can't see due to the hat or neck warmer covering his eyes.
The second phase of the competition would entail a neutral party taking the child outside, picking them up, and running a lap around a regulation-size track. If any article of clothing falls off, the team would automatically be disqualified from the final round.
Obviously countries nearest to the equator would be at a disadvantage in this event but they would have the upper hand during the summer olympics which would include an outfitting-your-child-for-the-beach event - complete with water shoes, bathingsuit, swim diaper, sunscreen, sun hat, and UV protection sunglasses.

song: Cover Me • artist: Bruce Springsteen

Baby it's Cold Outside

In case anyone notices that there are no new posts to the blog this week, it's because we're going to Quebec tomorrow not because I had to go back in to the hospital to have my other appendix removed. Only kidding! I know you only have one appendix, unless maybe it's a really long book. Not kidding about Quebec though - Great White North - here we come and yes, we know that it's cold up there.

song: Baby It's Cold Outside • artist: Frank Loesser

Cuts Like a Knife

Little kids abuse band aids like some adults abuse cigarettes, scratch tickets, or credit cards. Don't need 'em, but you gotta have 'em.
My older son has a legitimate finger injury but he's got band aids over two injury-free digits. His younger sibling has one finger covered in an effort to keep up with his older brother. He doesn't even know what a band aid is, he just knows that he wants one.
Tomorrow they'll be magically removed and they'll be pleading to have them reapplied. Perhaps snowmen this time instead of santas.

song: Cuts Like a Knife • artist: Bryan Adams

travel couplet

Preparing to go on vacation?
Pack everything in creation.

Dear Yoko

A pilfered ode to my son's stuffed turtle Eco, on what is his fourth birthday (so my son informs me). With all due respect to John Lennon and the lovely Yoko.

Oh Eco
I'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever gonna let you go
Oh Eco
I'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever gonna let you go

Even if it's just one night
I miss you and it don't feel right
I wish you were here tonight dear Eco
Even if it's just one hour
I wilt just like a fading flower
Ain't nothing in the world like our love dear Eco



song: Dear Yoko
artist: John Lennon

I can see clearly now

And speaking of the On The Water vest, it sports the On The Water logo of the two people fishing from a boat - the very logo Chris said, because of the big bend in the fishing line, reminded him of Jimmy Durant's nose. I was wearing the vest while putting my toddler to bed the other night when he reached up, pointed to the logo and distinctly said: "boat."
Of course he doesn't know what Jimmy Durant's nose looks like. Maybe if he did, he would be confused too.

song: I can see clearly now • artist: Johnny Nash

Star Wars

If you take a toddler, say thirty inches tall, and you put your extra-large, On The Water fleece vest on him, and it reaches down to the floor, and the toddler walks around the kitchen, from the back he will look just like Yoda!

song: Star Wars theme • artist: John Williams

Gimme Three Steps

One of my vices is not having the patience to read instructions; either at all, or all the way through to the end, before starting a project. This has stymied many a knitting and sewing project over the years but the domestic chore it interferes with the most is following a recipe.
I often think that recipes are written to purposefully trip up people like me. I'll be elbow deep in egg stirring when I'll read the following: "crack and whisk four eggs, after having separated the yolks." Or it's something like: "mix all ingredients, except for 1/2 cup of flour and a tbsp. of oil." If it says to mix all the ingredients - I mix all the ingredients, no questions asked. I'm not looking for some kind of surprise ending to the story.
It happened again tonight with green bean casserole. A recipe which is a staple of many a recent college graduate and of mothers with young children. I don't know why this happened because I know exactly what the finished dish is suppose to look like so I can't explain why I fell for, "mix all ingredients, except 2/3 cup French Fried Onions.

song: Gimme Three Steps • artist: Lynyrd Skynyrd

Hey Look Me Over

I dressed my son in the living room on Friday before leaving for work. I realize, then, that I am the person who left the wet diaper in the living room. However, after myself, there was a virtual parade of other people passing through the house who all failed to dispose of the diaper.
First where my parents, who, after returning from taking the kids over the bridge for lunch, proceeded to help make a floor puzzle in the living room not six-inches from the diaper.
Later Ken came home, lay on the couch and watched the game, overlooking the diaper which was positioned between the couch and the television.
Now that I've guaranteed no visitors will be unexpectedly stopping by to relax in my living room any time soon, I'll confess that the diaper didn't get thrown away until Saturday morning when I finally noticed it lying on the floor near the coffee table. I'd convinced C to pick up his floor puzzle and even he conveniently failed to notice the diaper.

song: Hey Look Me Over • artist: Cy Coleman

Night Moves

It's now been two weeks since I had my appendix removed. Today my son asked me this question: "When you were in the hospital and I had to stay overnight at Nana and Papa's house, why didn't you pack my pajamas in a suitcase?"
Perhaps I should just keep a packed suitcase in the car at all times in the event any minor emergencies come up, because obviously the real emergency is having to sleep at your grandparent's house without having brought the proper attire.

song: Night Moves • artist: Bob Seger

What I Like About You

Some of my fellow children's literature classmates remarked during our last class that Dr. Suess was a communist. Why is it that everyone who is just a little bit avant guard gets labeled a communist? In reality, Ted Geisel was a life-long Democrat. He even enlisted in WWII though he was in his late 30s at the time. He went to California and, among other things, made propaganda films cautioning American soldiers not to fraternize with the natives while they occupied Germany after the war.
But what I like about Dr. Seuss is that according to his biography by Judith and Neil Morgan, when approached by a sales manager at Random House who had "worked himself into an absolute frenzy thinking about merchandising Dr. Seuss," the author declined. "He was wary of anything - product franchising, most of all - that might cheapen the Dr. Suess image."
I also like this, in the town of La Jolla, CA, where he lived for more than half his life, Dr. Suess petitioned the town council for a local billboard ban even though it cost him an advertising contract with a sugar company. His appeal consisted of a story about two stone age business men who litter the countryside with signs. The short story ended with the following rhyme: And, thus between them, with impunity/They loused up the entire community.../And even the dinosaurs moved away/From that messed-up spot in the U.S.A/Which is why/our business men never shall/Allow such to happen in La Jolla, Cal.
And one last piece of trivia: what was Dr. Suess's best selling book? It's not the one that comes to mind first - it was Green Eggs and Ham.

song: What I Like About You • artist: The Romantics

Nothing but the Wheel

Today my son created puppets out of paper and popsicle sticks in order to put on his own performance of "Peter and the Wolf" from behind the living room couch. His younger brother and I were required to sit on the floor and watch it in its entirety.
It was better than "Scarface."

song: Nothing but the Wheel • artist: Peter Wolf

Mayor of Simpleton

My 20-month old calls every type of barnyard animal a "cow," every vehicle with wheels a "car," and every animals with wings or fins a "caw caw." A "ball" could be an egg, the sun, an orange, or a button.
I envy his ability to simplify things.

song: Mayor of Simpleton • artist: XTC

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

I was thinking of Lucy today. Lately I'm terrible with names and details of any sort. I can read the most interesting article or hear the most fascinating NPR segment and then be incapable of articulating what I read or heard to Ken later in the day.
Therefore, remembering that her name is Lucy feels significant.
Lucy is a nurse, or maybe an aide, who works nights in the hospital's maternity department. She was working after my first son was born. The first 24-hours after they are born, babies sleep a lot, but after that they're up, and to them, two o'clock in the morning doesn't seem like an unreasonable time to be awake. As it happened it was two o'clock in the morning. My new son and I were alone and he was crying. I was tired and sore and I couldn't make him stop. There's nothing that makes a new parent feel more insecure than finding themselves completely unable to console their baby. I didn't know what to do, so I did what I now know lots of new mothers do, I buzzed for the nurse. By this time I was crying too. Lucy came in. "I can't make him stop," I said. She took him - and instantly he was quite. I got back into bed. Lucy put my sleeping baby down. She said nothing and left the room. She was my hero. She was my baby whisperer. She didn't offer me any advice, perhaps because I would have been too tired to comprehend, but perhaps because she knew that figuring out how to console a baby is something we all learn for ourselves and something we all do differently, whatever works best depending on the situation.
Lucy was working when my second son was born as well. From the beginning H seemed to understand day verses night. The baby who came out crying, slept great at the hospital and has continued to sleep well ever since. I told Lucy the story of how she quieted my older son and how enormously thankful I was. She smiled and nodded and continued taking my vitals. She didn't remember, why would she? It was over two and-a-half years ago, I was one distraught mother out of hundreds she's helped. What was significant to me was routine to her.
I don't know what made me think of Lucy today. Maybe I'm on the cusp of forgetting her name, or of forgetting the entire incident, and writing it down is the only way I have of cementing her story as part of my story. Already I look at my four-year-old and can hardly believe he was ever the baby in the photos that hang in the stairwell. If that can happen in just four years what hope have I of remembering a nurse who came in my room in the middle of the night and helped get my son and I off on the right foot when I was drugged and groggy?

song: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds • artist: The Beatles

Hungry Like the Wolf

My son is really taken with Peter and the Wolf. You know, the half-hour long musical piece where the different instruments represent individual characters in the story, the duck is oboe, the bird is the flute, Peter is the strings, and so on. C loves to cue it up in the CD player but then he gets scared half-way through when the wolf appears, even though when it's over he likes to tell me stories about all the ways he would capture the wolf if he were Peter. The story of Peter and the Wolf is not for the faint-hearted, at one point the wolf catches and eats the duck, lock, stock, and barrel. Not like the watered-down versions of fairy tales and nursery rhymes most kids get these days, where the farmer's wife gives the mice cake instead of cutting off their tails, and Old Mother Hubbard kisses her kiddies instead of whipping them all soundly before bed. I don't think it's the wolf eating the duck that scares my son, though. I think, to Mr. Prokofiev's credit, it's the very frightening wolf music which causes him to vacate the living room and come up with some weak excuse for why he needs to be in the computer room with me. But the next time I ask what CD he wants to put on, the answer is the same: "Peter and the Wolf."
The whole thing reminds me of the movie American Werewolf in London. Both feature toothy, canine, antagonists; and instead of those weird villagers in the Slaughtered Lamb warning the Americans not to go in the moors, we've got the over-cautious grandfather cautioning Peter not to go in the meadow.

song: Hungry Like the Wolf • artist: Duran Duran

Teddy Bear

What is it about children and their stuffed animals? Long after my son is asleep I find that I can't carry his favorite teddy bear upstairs by the ear, for fear I might be hurting it. I guess we feel this way because the love a child feels for a favorite toy is so intense, it needs to be respected. We parents can only hope our children feel the same way about us as they do about Big Teddy, though how can we compare - Big Teddy isn't the one denying candy for dinner or forcing them to write odious thank you cards. As parents we are indebted to the stuffed animals who hunker down under the covers at night with our children and provide reassuring friendly faces after we've said good night and left the room.
Favorite stuffed animals also give children someone smaller than themselves upon which to exercise some control. Around our house, teddy bears and other animals have suffered the indignities of being diapered, getting imaginary shots and real band aids, eating wooden food, and being forced to lie down for naps in the middle of the afternoon, tired or not.
Of course you never know quite how much a child loves his favorite teddy bear until that teddy is accidentally left in the back seat of Nana and Papa's car.

song: Teddy Bear • artist: Elivs Presley

rainy saturday in january haiku

walking in the rain,
straight through all the mud puddles,
with our umbrellas.

U Can't Touch This

There is a nest in our living room. To the untrained eye, it might not look like a nest. It might look like just a bunch of scrunched up pieces of scrap paper. It might, in fact, look like someone haphazardly emptied their wastepaper basket in the middle of our living room floor. Someone who doesn't recycle their paper products that is. That's what it looked like to me at least, until my son told me it was a nest, and that not only was it a nest, but one of the scrunched up pieces of paper was a refrigerator, and one piece was an oven, and that, "everything you need," was in there.
Then little brother came into the living room and ruined the nest. It was hard to tell it was ruined, it still looked like scrunched up pieces of paper carelessly assembled in the living room, but I could tell by the crying - it was ruined.

song: U Can't Touch This • artist: MC Hammer

A Case of You

“All you do is yap yap and say bad, bad, bad, bad,” said Dr. Seuss’s Oncler to the Lorax. The Onceler then lit into the Lorax and told him he was going to go on “doing just what I do.” Which is par for the course for most of us isn’t it? Today, however, just to prove that I’m not always Ms. Negative, here’s a positive observation. I shuffled into town from work for lunch this afternoon and stopped to make appointment with the surgeon who performed my appendectomy. Be forewarned: this is a digression and not the positive observation. I had to physically show up at the doctor’s office to book the appointment because all week I’d tried to call and either gotten the answering service or a busy signal. By stopping in, I was merely checking to see if the doctor’s receptionists were, in fact, alive. Anyway, continuing on my short journey I then stopped at the coffee shop. While standing in line I was delighted to note that both the customer in front of me, the customer behind me, and myself, had all brought our own travel mugs instead of having to use a disposable cup for our afternoon pick me ups. It's guilt-free chai. Bottoms up!

song: A Case of You • artist: Joni Mitchell

Lay, Lady, Lay

My son gets the same amount of enjoyment from having me incapacitated as he gets from seeing the cat in her travel box. It's not as good as if I were down on the floor building towers and bridges with him, but while I'm lying on the couch recuperating, at least I'm a captive audience. I can admire what he's building and he's assured that I'm not going off somewhere to perform unnecessary tasks like making dinner or cleaning the breakfast dishes.

song: Lay, Lady, Lay • artist: Bob Dylan

The Four Seasons

Our house is not keeping up with the seasons. Or more to the point, we can't seem to part with any of the seasons. There's a construction-paper pumpkin tacked to the kitchen bulletin board, pipe-cleaner spiders and a witch hidden in the dining room plants, and a falling-leaf collage taped to the front door. There's a garland of glitter-glued Christmas trees over the sink, and as of today, hearts tied with yarn to the dining room cabinets.

song: The Four Seasons • artist: Vivaldi

Start Me Up

Last week I couldn't write because back pain made it uncomfortable to sit at the computer. This week I haven't been able to work because of abdominal pain. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Actually I'm perfectly happy to write drafts upstairs, long hand, while prostrate on the bed. I'm called upon to do this frequently when my son can't fall asleep unless I'm in the next room. I can spread notes and reference books and steno pads out more effectively on the bed than on the computer desk.
So what's the real problem? I don't consider myself a real writer, given that I don't write real news, so can I really have writer's block? There's plenty I could be getting done for work but with a break for the holidays and then for unforeseen hospital stays I can't seem to get things kick started again.
Could it be that the writing gene is contained in the appendix? It's true that doctors don't know what function, if any, the appendix serves and yet strangely it does double as a literary term.

song: Start Me Up • artist: The Rolling Stones

What I Am

Dear Gentle Reader,
It may be that I was hard on some people in my posts last week. Taking in on the chin were people who talk on their cell phones at the expense of their children, as well as people who leave their cars running needlessly at everyone's expense.
Perhaps I was a little curt, though in my own defense I'd like to offer that I was suffering from acute lower back pain which later became acute abdominal pain - culminating in an acute appendicitis at the end of the week. And so - my condition may have clouded my judgment and made me crankier than usual.
Yes, I'm aware that there are times when parents must make important cell phone calls in the presence of their children, thereby needing to shush or ignore them. However, I was there and this wasn't one of those times. Plus, I was not rude to this woman. I didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at her because if I had, I'd have to go about with my eyebrows permanently raised since we all talk on our cell phones ad nauseam. My point is, couldn't we all try to do it a little less?
Likewise, I did not stop and chew out the fellow with his car pulled to the side of the road, its engine still running, while he talked to his neighbor as I walked by on my way to drop off my son at daycare.
Nor did I say anything on the return trip ten minutes later when the car was still parked and running. Frankly, it's nice to see neighbors conversing. I do, however, uphold the right to complain about it here in the pages of this blog, which is entitled, incase you've forgotten: The Mommy RANT.
Now I don't always rant mind you. Sometimes I tell warm and fuzzy stories about my adorable children. But, given the title of this blog I reserve the right to rant, defined as "deliver a tirade," whenever I feel like it, inflamed appendix or not. That said, you, gentle reader, are welcome to call me on it when you feel I'm not being fair but I request you come up with an actual argument, something better then "stop worrying about what other people do."
And so, since I'm still pretty sore and grouchy, here's yet another reason not to like Disney.

song: What I Am • artist: Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

Baby Talk

At the playground yesterday we met a mother and her little girl. That is we might have been properly introduced to them if the mom had extracted her cell phone from her ear for at least part of the time her daughter was playing. It was fine with me, I'm not much for making small talk with other mothers, but I felt bad for the kid who was trying in vain to get her mum's attention. There used to be a bumper sticker admonishing drivers to "shut up and drive." Now as a mom, I'm against the phrase "shut up." My old K-car sported the more polite, "hang up and drive," but I think it might be time for one that advises, "shut up and pay attention to your kid."

song: Baby Talk • artist: Jan & Dean