Hey, Hey, What Can I Do?

Things I can and can't do while nursing:
can: prepare bowls of cereal
can't: cut up a banana
can: pour water into the cat's bowl
can't: pry the lid off the tupperware container her dry cat food is in
can: put shoes on H
can't: tie shoe laces
can: work in InDesign
can't: work in Photoshop
can: talk on the telephone
can't: write down a message
can: pitch the wiffleball to H
can't: run the bases
can: take laundry out of the washing machine
can't: hang it on the clothes line

song: Hey, Hey, What Can I Do? • artist: Led Zepplin

I Love Everybody

Cranky mommy rips off Lyle Lovett:

I love everybody,
who wears underwear.
I love everybody,
who wears underwear.
So if you wear pull ups
or diapers it's true,
I love everybody,
everybody but you.

song: I Love Everybody • artist: Lyle Lovett

Stealing Kisses

Let's get this straight, if you eat blueberries, or raspberries, or over-ripe zucchinis for that matter, while you are out picking them at Coonamessett Farm (or any farm), you are stealing. If you allow your children to do it, and you don't fess up at the check out and throw in a little extra money, which I had to do last summer when I couldn't seem to get H to stop helping himself a la Blueberries for Sal, your child is stealing.
I know I'm hot and cranky, and possibly hopelessly square, but seriously, I think Farmer Ron would be appalled if he were to walk through his blueberry bushes. Today it seemed like all anyone was talking about was how many berries they had "tested." Except for the two teenage girls at the end of one of the rows, they were throwing berries at each other. Their mom asked them to "cut it out" but it didn't look as if they heard. I would have hauled them out by their hair and taken them home.
Forget people all over the world who are rioting for food, how can you blatantly rip off someone whose face you are familiar with? Someone who's letting you come onto his property, his beautiful property, and pick gorgeous, healthy, produce. I realize that eating a handful of blueberries probably won't cause the farm to go belly up - but - like I say to C, as one of my generic responses to a lot of different requests, what if everyone did it? Then where would the farm be? I can't imagine those same people graze the produce department at Shaws and encourage their children to do the same.
In the past I've been asked if I let my kids eat while they pick and I used to give the polite answer which is no because the berries hadn't been washed off yet. That's a good reason, but it's not the real reason. The real reason is that it's wrong to eat something before you pay for it. Kids don't understand shades of gray, if they think it's okay to eat one or two, why not a dozen, why not as many as they want?
And as for the people who've been caught walking off the farm, vegetables in hand, who claimed that they thought the vegetables were free with their farm membership - spare me. Does your BJs membership entitle you to take things from the store for free? Does your membership to Heritage Museums and Gardens mean you can walk off with merchandise from their gift shop? You're better off claiming you forgot to pay, at least that's slightly more believable.
Today we picked berries, H and I. Then we paid for them, washed them, sat on the deck overlooking the farm, and ate them, which, frankly, has to be more pleasant than eating them in the field, though I wouldn't know for sure.

song: Stealing Kisses • artist: Lori McKenna

The Impossible Dream

It was a triple whammy day. A small boy's dream. Lawrence and Lynch was doing road work on our street, our next door neighbor's septic system was undergoing an upgrade and there was a bulldozer parked in his front yard, and, the oil man came to clean our furnace. The morning was a cornucopia of interesting things for C and H to see and ask questions about. They didn't know what to do first.
Later in the day I had one twin asleep in the living room and the other sleeping in the kitchen. This made both those rooms off limits to me for fear of waking either of them. Yep, I live in fear of my babies. I couldn't even clean up in the office because the cat was asleep in the newspaper recycling basket. I was off the hook and left with nothing to do but watch YouTube all afternoon. It was a mommy's dream.

song: The Impossible Dream • musical: Man of LaMancha

Autograph

Text messaging shorthard circa 1935.

song: Autograph • artist: John Denver

Can't Fight This Feeling

More proof that my kids will fight over anything.
H likes to call the twins "nice bo bo babies," which makes C mad because he wants to call them "cutie petuties." This usually results in a screaming match between the two of them which ultimately makes the twins - regardless of what they're called - cry.

song: Can't Fight This Feeling • artist: REO Speedwagon

left behind (a haiku)

one blue garden glove,
on the bench near the frog pond,
awaits your return

The Entertainer

This week, over the course of 72 hours, I had lunch with my cousin, dinner with a friend from high school, lunch and dinner with a friend from college, and an hour-long phone conversation with another friend which even surprised my husband (I hate to talk on the phone). It's all been wonderful and stimulating but at the same time exhausting. Therefore I feel its time for me to go back to being my normal antisocial self again.

song: The Entertainer • artist: Scott Joplin

Space Age Love Song

You know how a group of crows is called a murder, a group of frogs is a knot, and a group of rabbits a warren?
I like to call this a "vibration" of baby chairs.

song: Space Age Love Song • artist: A Flock of Seagulls

Never Forget This Song

WMVY has been broadcasting this week from the Ottawa Blues Festival. It drew my attention because, although I haven't been anywhere lately, I've been to Ottawa several times. Despite being Canada's capital, Ottawa never gets the publicity that Toronto, Quebec City, and Montreal get. I kept waiting for Barbara Dacy to mention the cats of Parliament Hill but she never did. The cats of Parliament Hill are something like the pigeons of Trafalgar Square, or the denizens of the duck pond in Boston's Public Gardens. Animals that weren't meant to become tourist attractions but somehow ended up that way.
But I digress. When WMVY was airing music from the festival I noticed that a lot of if didn't sound particularly bluesy. I'm no expert on the blues, alas, I'm no expert on anything, but I've become blues educated since inertia usually prevents my changing the radio station weeknights between 8 and 9 when WMVY broadcasts The Blues at 8. Therefore I think I know the blues when I hear it. Donna Summer? Snoop Dogg? The Black Crows? Okay, they didn't actually play Snoop Dogg on WMVY, but he was in the festival line up. I thought that maybe the definition of blues music is different in Canada so I logged on to their website. There I found out that one of the objects of the festival is not to promote the blues but instead: "to support and sustain the growth of emerging and diverse musical genres, including the Blues, World Music, Alternative, Rock, Jazz, Funk, Soul, Rap, Folk, Urban, and other forms of music that develop from time to time."
Phew. That's pretty inclusive. The Ottawa Blues Festival very well may harbor a sincere desire to expand our collective musical horizons but if that's the case, shouldn't they drop the misleading name? To me the objective says, "we'll take any performer we can get."
That objective seems to be gaining popularity among the "festival" circuit. Here are some of the performers at next month's Newport Folk Festival: Brian Wilson, Jimmy Buffett, The Black Crows (again!), Cowboy Junkies. All good performers to be sure, but they're not folk. I know because I looked them all up on iTunes and not one was listed in the folk category. I know there is a folk category on iTunes because when I typed in Pete Seeger - voila - he's categorized as folk. The Newport Folk Festival doesn't seem to list any objectives so there's no way to find out what their justifications are for headlining acts that aren't considered folk music. Again, I am left to assume, "we'll take any performer we can get."
Interestingly, jazz festivals haven't yet fallen victim to this homogenization. I base this fact on having looked at the line up of the Miami Beach Jazz Festival and not recognizing a single artist.
The Black Crows must have been busy that weekend.

song: Never Forget This Song • artist: The Black Crows

Ball of Confusion

It's not nice to mess with mommy's head.
C has started referring to himself in the third person. He'll say things like, "C want some more watermelon."
In addition to sounding sort of cavemanish - this is confusing for me. I'll look around to see where C is before realizing that he's talking about himself. It's hard enough to keep everyone straight (I often confuse H with the cat) without somebody talking about themselves as if they were another entity all together.
As if that wasn't bad enough, on Friday night I had a husband-induced twilight zone moment. I was driving the truck and I'd parked it at T.J.Maxx and gone inside to load up on size 3T undies for H. Ken came to the parking lot, found the truck, and unlocked it to get out his wallet. Then he turned the truck around to face hood-out in the parking lot, and left. This made it easier for me to pull out when I was leaving but it caused me to do several double takes in the parking lot because I knew I hadn't backed in when I parked. I confirmed that it was Ken's truck because the key fit into the lock and I recognized the boat shoes, tennis rackets, water bottles and other assorted items in the truck bed.

song: Ball of Confusion • artist: The Temptations

Things You Left Behind

It's a theory of mine that our own personal universes expand in proportion to our surroundings. For example if we get a raise and start making a few more dollars we increase our standard of living to match out new found wealth. Likewise, the size of one's house dictates how much stuff he or she will hoard away. Similarly, now that at I'm driving a mini-van I have to fight the urge to carry around entire wardrobes with changes of clothing for each one of us, plus swim wear and towels for the occasional, impromptu, beach stop. I desire not to do this because the diaper bag, the double stroller, and the economy-size bag of wipes, all of which I regard as necessities, effectively fill up the rear of the van.
This means I am constantly packing and unpacking the car, and trying to remember to bring specific items every time we leave the house.
This means I forget something just about every day.
On Monday it was sweatshirts for H and C to bring to the Commodores game. Who knew it was going to cool off?
On Tuesday it was hats for N and S to wear while we were in the ice arena.
On Wednesday it was shoes for H, which wasn't a problem until we had to stop at Amber Waves and I had to carry him in and make him sit on the check out counter while we shopped.
On Thursday we didn't go anywhere.
On Friday we went to Goodwill Park. I remembered the sunscreen, the snacks, the bottled water, the ball, the bat, the clippers, and even all of C's dress up clothes to wear to the theater that night. In fact I was feeling pretty good about things as I was driving home from dropping off H and C with my parents.
Then I remembered that I hadn't brushed my teeth that morning.

song: Things You Left Behind • artist: The Nails

Shine On

Since January we've been going to bed with the hall light on so that when one of the twins wakes up in the night I can see to nurse him. This was working well until recently when it starting getting hot at night and we set up the air conditioner that goes in the bedroom window. Now, if I open the door to let light from the hall into the bedroom, there goes all our cool air. On the other hand, if I close the door, I can't see the twins, nor can I hear H or C, should one of them wake up during the night.
It's as if I can't have my cake and keep it cool too.

song: Shine On • artist: Entrain

Sunshine Superman

See? Garbage collectors really are superheros.

song: Sunshine Superman • artist: Donovan

Sixteen Candles

Poor Ken. Poor old Ken. Poor old candle-deprived Ken. Sunday was his birthday and we didn't have 48 candles to put on his cake. We didn't even have the numbers 4 and 8 in our collection of "big number" candles. Instead we had to use last year's 4 and 7 candles and stick a single (pink) candle next to them.
Ken's parent's sent him a e-card for his birthday.
An e-card. I've never sent an e-card in my life.
Every now and then you'll hear about some 80-year-old woman who gets a new computer in order to IM her grandchildren, or geriatric1927, the 79-year old Englishman who's achieved YouTube fame. While on the surface we say things like, "that's great, good for him," I propose that secretly we don't want our parents to catch up with the latest technology. We don't want them to master TiVo, to walk around attached to earbuds, or to talk about how many friends they have on Facebook. When we were teenagers we didn't want them doing this because we perceived it as embarrassing. Now we see it as a threat. We don't want them doing this when we're 40 because it just might mean they are more technologically hip than we are. It is conceivable that they are - or could be if they put their minds to it. After all, they have more time to learn this stuff while we are busy trying to figure out what's for dinner and what happened to all the missing socks. They are retired. They eat pizza every night and don't notice if their socks don't match. They have all the time they need to take photos with their cell phones and upload them to their blog.
Though on the surface we may complain about how our parents live in the past and are always talking about "the good old days," there's comfort in knowing that at your parent's house the carpets are still shag, the footstool is still naugahyde, and Neil Diamond is still crooning on the stereo. We prefer our parents remain in the decade in which we graduated high school. It makes us feel young.
What would we do without the generation gap? Sit around with our parents and talk about sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll? Certainly not! We need the generation gap as a cushion between us and them because if our parents are on the same wave length as us, then it surely means we are old.
We also need our parents, or at least their houses, to be firmly rooted in the past in order to enlighten our children about our own personal past as well as about some of the iconic relics of previous generations. There should be plenty of old photographs at our parents house, a few embarassing ones of us, but more importantly ones of relatives who have long since died. This way kids can point to them and ask who they were and the grandparents can tell the story of Grandma Studley who grew African violets and of Auntie Edna who liked to sleep under the Christmas tree. A grandparent's house should be a portal to another time. Just last week my son came home from my parent's house talking about "those disc things." He meant records. Maybe this week he'll notice that they have a bread box.

song: Sixteen Candles • artist: The Platters

Wouldn't It Be Nice?

I think I had a city mouse/country mouse conversation with a woman from Toronto the other night. I said something to the effect of, "I've been to Toronto. It seems like a great place to live." She said that it was nice but that Falmouth was "beautiful" and that I must love living here. I didn't disagree but I was reminded of the old, "isn't Falmouth Nice" slogan.
It's nice unless.
Unless you're fishing off the dock in Megansett with your grandson.
Unless you're sitting in traffic after the fireworks in a car with New York license plates.
Unless you're trying to find a bathroom for your potty-training three year old to use and the public restrooms behind Main Street are closed at 3:30PM on a holiday weekend, even though it's clearly posted that they are open until 5PM.

song: Wouldn't It Be Nice? • artist: Beach Boys

The Outdoor Type

Hey Priscilla,
Here's how it went down today.
He pooped in the back yard!
Maybe it was because I told him not to go to the bathroom in his bathing suit.
After the pooping incident, I brought the potty out on the deck and he peed in it twice. Ironically, I was prepared to just empty it in the woods but he insisted on walking it inside, pouring it into the toilet, and flushing.
He said that tomorrow he would wear his "big boy undies," but I think he's just messin' with me.

song: The Outdoor Type • artist: The Lemonheads

Stop Making Sense

As a mostly-stay-at-home mom I often lack for adult conversation, but if I manage to get my tribe out of the house I can often overhear some good stuff. Through the din of my crying child at toddler aerobics we overheard this from a woman in the back of the room on a cellphone, "you mean I don't have Lyme disease?" She sounded almost disappointed.
At the Mostly All Male whatever they call themselves, I couldn't help overhearing a conversation between the two women sitting in front of C and I. One of the women was telling the other that she was going to be spending the month of July living in her RV - in the WalMart parking lot.
Unlike Lyme disease lady, she did not sound disappointed at all, in fact she sounded as if she was looking forward to it. As if there's no better place to be during the month of July than in the mall parking lot.
At least in her parking lot oasis she'll be able to avoid ticks and insects and other denizens of the great outdoors. Other folks aren't so lucky. Last Monday at Coonamessett Farm I overhead a 12-year-old girl complain that there was a spider on the outdoor play equipment she was using. I know she was 12 because her grandmother chided her for being 12 and climbing on outdoor play equipment meant for toddlers. Her mother was on her way over to intervene (and not on behalf of the spider) when her father, perhaps seeing the dirty look I was throwing their way, pointed out, "well, we are outside."
Outside the realm of reason I'd say.

album: Stop Making Sense • artist: Talking Heads

july 2 (a quatrain)

sweaty baby
seeking shady
place to lay
while brothers play

I Can Dream About You

What's more adorable than one sleeping baby?


Two sleeping babies of course!

song: I Can Dream About You • artist: Dan Hartman

All Out Of Luvs

My college summers were spent working at the supermarket (it was Purity Supreme then, Shaws now). During those summers, amidst the ringing and bagging of groceries, I learned a few life lessons. For example, never put the eggs on the bottom of the bag - and - if a customer's pint of strawberries spills onto the conveyor belt during check out, never argue with them over whether or not they new a new pint, just go and fetch one.
There was one couple who came in, not regularly, but often enough, who drove a Volkswagen bug (yellow). In helping them carry out their groceries I learned that in a bug, what there was of a trunk was in the front of the car.
From this couple I also learned that you can never have too many diapers.
After they had been coming in for a while, maybe it was during my second summer of working at the store, they started showing up with a baby. Later that same summer they showed up one night carrying said baby, who was naked. The three of them headed straight to the diaper aisle, took down a package in their preferred brand and sped off towards the bathrooms in the rear of the store. They returned minutes later with the baby, now diapered, and the package of diapers, now opened.
They didn't need any help getting their groceries out to the car that night.

song: All Out Of Love • artist: Air Supply

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Nothing is more interesting to little children than even littler children. Especially babies. Especially crying babies.
Today at the library N started crying during Toddler Aerobics. I was already holding S so I couldn't swoop in and pick up N as well. In no time there was a handful of toddlers hovering around our double stroller like gawkers at an accident. Toddler aerobics was forgotten.
"The baby's crying," said one child who was old enough to talk.
Pre-talkers simply pointed at N which got the message across just fine. The message being - "this baby is crying, somebody do something quick!"
The response of other parents to crying babies is just the opposite. A few brave souls, those who aren't dealing with their own crying offspring, offer to help, but most figure the best way to help is to ignore the situation completely. This isn't cruel, it's an attempt to appear casual. To make the parent of the offender feel that their child's crying isn't causing a complete disruption at all - why it's barely noticeable.
Barely noticeable to parents perhaps, but their kids sure aren't about to let you get away with it.

song: While My Guitar Gently Weeps • artist: The Beatles

Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?

peacock: Hey baby, check me out. Nice tail feathers huh?
peacock: Come on baby, look over here.
peahen: You think you're something special. Why don't you wash the dishes every once in a while, do a load of laundry - help out around here instead of strutting around like you're God's gift to poultry.

song: Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? • artist: Rod Stewart

Hot Stuff

My cat is named after George Carlin. Specifically she's named Rufus, after the character George Carlin played in the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's a little embarrassing to admit this - not that I liked George Carlin enough to name by cat after him - but that I saw Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. In the theater even.
You know they couldn't make that movie today - no more telephone booths to travel through time in.
I hope wherever George is now, he's got a place for his stuff.

song: Hot Stuff • artist: Donna Summer

Something About The Way You Look Tonight

Recently I inherited a pair of cat eyeglasses with magnifying lenses, straight out of the 1950s. Ken said I looked like a college professor in them. I've never worn glasses but that seemed as good a reason as any to start. If I can't be a college professor, at least I can look like one; and is it just me or has the type in e-mails been getting smaller lately?
Tonight I wore the glasses when I read bedtime books to H and C. I read two books, orchestrated teeth brushing and lights out and neither of them asked why I was wearing glasses. They didn't even notice. This just proves that how I look is inconsequential. I could be naked and wearing a green wig and it wouldn't be half as interesting as Arthur's TV Trouble or Arthur's Computer Disaster.
Speaking of Arthur (and I'm always speaking of Arthur these days), isn't it odd how Marc Brown completely changed the look of the characters in the early Arthur books as compared to more recently published stories?
That, my children noticed.

song: Something About The Way You Look Tonight • artist: Elton John

Luck Be A Lady

Are two lady bugs getting lucky, luckier than a pair of lady bugs who are in a strictly platonic relationship?

song: Luck be a Lady • musical: Guys and Dolls

Rock Lobster

On Tuesday my dad and C brought home two blue claw crabs from the town landing. Unusually big ones for this time of year, except that one had no claws and the other had only one claw. Technically, I guess that would make them blue claw-less crabs. Do crabs regenerate claws like starfish do arms? I wonder. With or without claws, I didn't mind since crab meat is delicious, much better than lobster.
Anyway, I was charged with the task of cooking these bad boys up - and they were boys, I checked. Even though my mother cooked a fair share of crabs in her day, I felt more like my grandmother at that moment. Cooking a crab is no easy feat. Even a crab with only one claw puts up a mean fight. I had to switch from the regular tongs that I use for taking corn on the cob out of the put, to the long-handled grill tongs. I summoned up the nerves of steal my grandmother must have had in order to lop heads off of chickens, grabbed up my local meal, and put it in the pot. I wondering how many times my grandfather and returned home, the bottom of his skiff filled with crabs for my grandmother to dispatch of. Those must have been some good dinners.
Even though they seem every bit as ornery as their reputations suggests, I still felt guilty about cooking them. No one deserves to be boiled alive, even a hostile crustation. I pictured myself sometime in the future at the gates of heaven where I would be met, not by Saint Peter, but by a very large crab holding a pair of equally large tongs. "You wanna see hot?" he'll say in a voice that sounds not unlike Jack Nicholson's.
After the crabs were cooked I had to pick out the meat which - a labor intensive task. Am I missing something here? Is there an easier way? I did get to employ Flossie's method of extracting meat from the legs by flattening them with a rolling pin.
C seemed put out the next morning when he found out that in order to take out the meat, I had to crack open the crab bodies. Guess he thought he was going to have his crabs and eat them too.

song: Rock Lobster • artist: B-52s

Superman

I don't know why film producers have to market superheros to toddlers when real superheros like trash collectors already exist for kids to worship. One of the benefits to living on a dead-end road is that the garbage truck has to go by our house two times.
When C was the same age that H is now, our trash collector's name was George. We knew his name because George was also the father of young boys, and as such, was fully aware of his superhero status. George played the part to its full potential and had a rapt audience in my son. He would stop in front of our house to chat, and invite C to climb into the cab of the truck. This reduced my normally gregarious son to stunned silence. It was as if he couldn't believe he was actually having this brush with greatness. On rainy days, or days when we just didn't make it to the end of the driveway on time, George would honk his horn as he rumbled past.
A few years back I didn't think I would spend my Friday mornings in anxious anticipation of the garbage man any more than I thought I'd ever utter the phrase, "who ever came up with the concept of touch-a-truch day was a real genius," but fate has a way of intervening in these matters. It was a sad day at the Gartner house when George got reassigned to a different route. The two men who collect our garbage now are nice enough, they waved at H the other morning and gave him a friendly, "how ya doing, Buddy?" But they are young drivers and don't yet realize the cult status that three-year-old boys elevate trash collectors too.
As for superheros appearing in the movie theater this summer, let's see, there's the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, the Dark Knight (it's about Batman for those of you, like me, who didn't know), Hellboy II, and something called Hancock which, according to IMDB, purports to be about a super hero "who has fallen out of favor with the public."
Nothing good can come from flooding the theaters with superheros, even out-of-favor heros. You know the old saying, "if everyone's a superhero, then no one's a superhero."
I for one, may be losing my superhero status. Since it was proving impossible to keep enough frozen breast milk on hand, the pediatrician sent us home from the twin's four-month check up with free samples of formula to mix in with their rice cereal.
The breast pump is my kryptonite.

song: Superman • artist: R.E.M.

Mamma Mia

Holy Hostility Batman! Here's a woman who was profoundly not the perfect person to carry twins.

song: Mamma Mia • artist: Abba

If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

C and I went to see the Greater Falmouth Mostly-All-Male Men's Chorus last night. I can't decide if "mostly-all-male men's chorus" is redundant or contradictory. In either case, the men are scarcely hanging on to their "mostly" status. Excluding the conductor and the man turning pages for the accompanist, I counted 14 women and 17 men. "Mostly" seems like it should denote at least a 2/3rd's majority. But what are the options? They could change the name to Greater Falmouth Almost-As-Many-Women-As-Men Men's Chorus? That would be the GFAAMWAMMC for short.
Gender issues not withstanding, the show was excellent.

song: If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out • artist: Cat Stevens

I'd Love To Change The World

The twins made their first appearance at Besty's Diner last Wednesday. They seated all of us in the same booth we were seated in the first time H went to Betsy's except that now there are so many of us the host had to pull two tables together. It must be the designated seating area for families with potentially troublesome babies.
It wasn't the twins first diner visit though. That honor goes to Angelo's Diner in New Bedford. Just around the corner from the Buttonwood Zoo.
Because Ken and I both ordered the turkey dinner, there were plenty of leftovers. We brought all the turkey home for the cat. I think I saw Ken washing the meat off before putting them in her dish. If she were a wild cat she'd eat mouse entrails. Consequently, I think she can work her way around a smidgen of mashed potatoes on her turkey dinner.
Now they make this cat food called 100% BG (before grain). It contains 100% of whatever the ingredient is on the label. It's the equalivant of cooking up ground beef or a roast chicken for her every night, which would probably be cheaper in the long run than opening these little cans to supplement her special-diet dry cat food. However, having lived up to her end of our bargain by hanging in until my fortieth birthday, I figure she's more than entitled. I passed on getting her 100% quail or salmon though. It sounded like something I should be spreading on a cracker rather than feeding to my pet.
Here's another confession that will further sully my tree-hugging reputation. Sometimes, on Friday nights, I like to veg in front of the television and watch reruns of CSI Miami. I'd rather watch reruns of Northern Exposure or X-Files but I can't seem to find either of those.
I'm hoping that when next season rolls around, with a nod to climate change, perhaps they'll downgrade Horatio's Hummer to something more fuel efficient, like maybe a Yukon or a Denali.

song: I'd Love To Change The World • artist: Ten Years After

Instant Karma

Even without the cicadas June is bug month. Bugs in my house that is. I just tried to squash one that was on the computer screen. I didn't kill it. I only maimed it. Then fell into the hinge between the computer screen and the keyboard. It will probably short-circuit my laptop days after the one-year warranty is up. How's that for karmic retribution?

song: Instant Karma • artist: John Lennon

We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

First it was the Museum of Fine Arts, then it was the Zooquarium. I don't know why we needed to take them to a zoo, a carload of preschooler pretty much IS a zoo.
I had a heck of a time buckling everyone into their car seats. The boy who unbuckled his seat belt in traffic last week didn't go on this trip but that only made things marginally better. First one boy said his stomach hurt, then another chimed in. Someone said my car smelled. There was name calling, "baby," "stupid," "dummy," and some assorted potty talk. Miss Courtney got reassigned to our mini van on the way home.
It was freezing out and drizzling, and more like a day in April (complete with showers), than one in June. It didn't matter much that it was rainy though since the kids got wet playing in the touch tank before even heading out into the yard. My son behaved badly. You'd think a kid would be on his or her best behavior when their parent's chaperone but it seems like the exact opposite is true. There are pictures of cow patties on the digital camera that C contends were not taken my him and we got to be on hand to see the peacock get lucky.
There were signs up to tell us how much aluminum foil gets thrown away yearly by the average American but no containers for recycling that I could see.
I don't think I have to tell you that I could never, never, be a preschool teacher. Preschool teachers are, for lack of a better adjective, incredible people. I hope that Miss Rosanne and Miss Courtney have a fabulous summer off because no one deserves it more.
And if there's a news brief in next week's paper about how the bobcat died after ingesting the cardboard tube off a roll of paper towels - well I don't know anything about that.

song: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place • artist: The Animals

Here Comes the Sun

Along with the never-to-be-used list of potential little girl names there was also an article about sunblock in the wooden box on the hutch. Might as well pass this information along, consider this your public service message for the week. To sum it up the story suggested that the best sunscreens to prevent cancer should block both UVB and UVA rays and contain zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, or avobenzone. I scoured the shelves at CVS last year and could only come up with two brands that fit the bill: Neutrogena and Blue Lizard.
The difference between sunscreens with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 and one of 50 is 6%. A SPF 15 sunscreen blocks 93% of all harmful rays while one of 50 blocks 98%. Don't believe them when they claim to be water resistant or repellant - always reapply.
The article also recommended applying sunscreen a half hour before going outside. I suggest you apply it right after your children get out of bed and are still too groggy to put up a fight.

song: Here Comes the Sun • artist: The Beatles

Lipstick on Your Collar

I knew there was a reason I stuck with lip gloss.

song: lipstick on your collar • artist: Connie Francis

Another Opening Another Show

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out a way to get up there, but my sister's show opens tonight.
Arrrr.
As a show of solidarity I'm having some wine and cheese right now.

song: Another Opening Another Show • artist: Cole Porter

How Long is Too Long

Until today I was convinced that the cicadas were never going to show up. Somebody, somewhere, had made a mistake. Did we say 17 years? Opps, it's really 18 years - my bad. Maybe the cicadas succumbed to global climate change. Maybe they started up and then got confused thinking they'd gone back in time 17 years to the mid 70s instead of forward. They saw the oil crisis, tuned into WMVY and heard them over playing songs by the Eagles, and just went back into their holes. No cicadas? Just think of all those great cicada recipes (especially chocolate covered cicadas) going to waste.
All that changed today when I saw the first one; as big as a JFK half-dollar and plenty creepy looking. It was flattened in the parking lot of the Cataumet Art Center but I was all aquiver anyway. Imagine that. Digging your way to the surface after 17 years underground just to get run over. I'll bet its last though was, "hey, there wasn't a parking lot here 17 years ago." C asked me how I knew it was a cicada. Boy does he challenge me on everything.
The cicadas might just be the most exciting event of my summer. That and bull riding at the fair grounds on Father's Day weekend. That's right - bull riding. I know Susan is going to be shocked to find out about this revelation. Not only do I watch Sex in the City and eat red meat - I like the rodeo. For the sake of my earthy crunchy reputation let me clarify that I watched Sex in the City on TBS not HBO, I rarely cook red meat though I've been know to order it at restaurants, and admittedly I've only been to the rodeo once. That was a whole 12 years ago when Christine and I were in Texas, but I'm excited about the cicadas and it's been a whole 17 years since I saw them last.
Remember when five years seemed like a long time?
I was thinking the other day that the kids who are graduating from high school this month weren't even born when I graduated from college 18 years ago.

song: How Long • artist: The Eagles

I Call Your Name II

When C was in Nova Scotia visiting relatives with my parents he told me there were some kids, a brother and a sister, that he played with. They went to school so he couldn't go play with them until the afternoon. They had a trampoline.
I asked what their names were but C said he didn't know. I wondered how he could play with two children for a week and not learn their names. Then it occurred to me that he didn't need to know their names. He wasn't calling them on the phone, only looking out a window to see if they were in their yard. He didn't need to know their names to know if they were nice or fun to play with. I remember being in Nova Scotia when my sister was the same age as C and she played for a week with the little boy next door who spoke only French. It's only adults who need to know names in order to categorize other people. In order to size them up.
I was midway through congratulating myself on having such a deep thought when I realized that this wasn't an original idea at all.
Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him
That's The Little Prince of course. One of the greatest little books ever written.

song: I Call Your Name • artist: The Beatles

I Call Your Name

All I was looking for was a way to get H to respond to my call when he was in the backyard. Plan A was that I'd yell his name and his appropriate response was to yell back, "mommy." We rehearsed it over and over but he never really got the hang of it. My second idea was to teach him Marco Polo. This he caught onto to with ease. Now when I can't find him, either in the house or in the back yard, I call "Marco," and he answers, "Polo." This works great but I worry that the neighbors will think I have a son named Marco.
On the other hand, I have so many sons, what's one more. I kind of like the name.
Speaking of names, while cleaning out the wooden letter holder box that was overflowing with recipes clipped from the paper and membership renewal requests from Audubon, I found our list of girl names.
Since we won't be needing those anymore I thought I'd pass them along. In retrospect it's a good thing we didn't have a girl - I don't like most of these names anymore.
Aleyna? I can't even pronounce that.
Samantha? Too Sex in the City.
Natalie? Too Facts of Life.
Dusty? That must have been our planned tribute to Dusty Springfield,
and Morgan - maybe if I had a horse.
Here's the list: Aleyna, Samantha, Sydney, Sasha, Dakota, Alexandra, Dusty, Morgan, Natalie, Julliette, Michelle/Shelly, Holly, Ella, Edna, Margo

song: I Call Your Name • artist: the Beatles

How Great Thou Art

Friday was a first, my first time driving into Boston and Cs first trip to the MFA. I have been in the passenger seat many times to that part of the city but have never driven there myself (I usually opt for public transport). However with the help of my co-pilot, who was capable and a good sport to boot, we chaperoned the pre-school field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. That means that not only did I drive into the city, I did it with a car full of five-year olds. As you may or may not know, despite having four children of my own, I'm not the least bit at ease around kids - in fact, other people's children terrify me. But, I felt guilty that I had not been available to help out with preschool much this year (I haven't even brought in snacks lately), and I like going to the museum, so this seemed a good fit.
I'm proud to say that with the exception of almost hitting that guy in the pickup truck at the intersection by the North Falmouth Library a mere 30 seconds after leaving the school, things went pretty well.
You may think that taking a group of three, four, and five year olds to a museum of that scale is a crazy endeavor and you may be right. Yes, some children cried, alarms were tripped, I was covered in spit up before we left the school parking lot, one kid threw herself on the ground in the museum and refused to walk, and another just plain threw up, but there were real mummies to be seen and who among us doesn't dig a mummy?
My son spent his time in the museum taking photographs of the art instead of looking at it.

song: How Great Thou Art • artist: Carl Boberg

ode to cheese (a couplet)

Everything's betta
with feta

Waiting on a Friend

It's hard to tell which upcoming event is more anticipated, this Friday's opening of the Sex in the City movie or the return of the 17-year cicadas. I wish the locust would just show up already. I thought they were supposed to arrive in early May? Every week there are articles about them in the papers with the same quotes from the expert entomologist at Barnstable County Cooperative Extension. They're coming, but like bad house guests, no one knows when. I personally can't wait. What could be more exciting for 5-year old and 3-year old boys than a infestation of insects? Tonight at the Captain Kidd I overheard a man at the bar announcing that they were just starting to peek out of holes in North Falmouth. "They're a little sluggish," he told the bartender. Just pushing through to the surface after seventeen years underground? I'd be sluggish too. The guy at the bar said he could vividly remember when the cicadas last appeared. It was the year he got his first bb gun. Guess what he used for target practice? I suppose it beats the neighbor's cat.
At least the Sex in the City movie doesn't keep pushing back it's opening.
Considering I waited until the show started its replays on TBS to begin watching, I doubt I'll go see Sex in the City in the theater. Despite that late start, I count myself as a big fan, having recently compared Carrie's relationship with the Russian to the protagonist of Eat, Pray, Love's affair with the Brazilian.
Whenever I'm on the couch nursing at 11PM I always flip to channel 8. If I'm still on the couch at 11:30 I'll switch over to channel 6 to watch Seinfeld reruns.
Does Sex in the City really need a movie? They wrapped up the series quite neatly in my opinion. In some of the the articles I've read leading up to Friday's big event, the reason given for the movie is the fans need to know what happened to their four favorite New York women. I have to admit being befuddled by this need to know notion. Nothing happened to them - they're television characters. They haven't been living in another dimension somewhere for the past four years. I'm a Seinfeld fan and enthusiastic rerun watcher, but never once have I wondered what happened to the characters, ditto for Scully and Mulder even though there's a new X-files movie coming this July. I didn't wonder about Sam or Diane either, or give much thought to how the cast of MASH reacclimated to civilian life after returning home from Korea. Come to think of it though that would have made an interesting movie, but I guess that was the premise for "The Best Years of Our Lives."
I did wish that I had friends like the women of "Sex in the City." I wished the same thing after reading Bridget Jones' Dairy. I don't wonder about the afterlives of fictional book characters either. I didn't read the sequel to Bridget Jones - she got the guy - what more did I need to know?
To set the record straight though, I do have friends who are equally as fabulous as Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, in fact they are even more fabulous because they really exist.
This isn't to say I won't rent the movie when it's available. I surely will. If the cicadas don't hurry up and get here their arrival might end up coinciding with, not the big screen release of Sex in the City, but instead it's arrival in a video store near you. That will be approximately three weeks from now - or when the ground warms up to 65 degrees. Whichever comes first.

song: Waiting on a Friend • artist: The Rolling Stones

I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying

The comedy and the tragedy of it all.

song: I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying • artist: Sting

We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off

There have been many ridiculous ads featuring women in their underwear; not to mention ads for power boats where all the men are wearing khakis and polo shirts and all the women are wearing bikinis that look as if they are two sizes too small. So even though it's a childish attitude and I should be beyond payback, I was gleefully happy to see this ad of the photographer in his underwear.
I picture him lining up a family portrait: mom, dad, grandma, three kids, and the dog.
Photographer: "Okay everybody now just relax and look natural. Don't be nervous. Just smile. Pretend that I'm in my underwear.
Astute five year old: But you ARE in your underwear.
Just look at the size of that camera - will ya? Nothing phallic about that, no sir. It's not the size of your lens, it's how you use it.
Here's the best part, and again I know I'm too old to dissolve into giddy laughter when I say this but, it's the pouch collection.
This reminds me of a book I read recently - to my three year old - called Arthur's Underwear. Have I mentioned that H is obsessed with Arthur? That crazy aardvark. He wears briefs.

song: We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off • artist: Soozy Q

Ain't That Lovin' You Baby

I wrote about the twins the other day because I felt guilty that I never write about them. I was looking back over journals I kept when C was a baby and I recorded his every move. I spent entire days trying to ascertain the most effective way to "stimulate the baby." Here's an entry from those journals from a time when C was about the same age the twins are now: "you have also become very vocal, squeaking and squealing and deriving all sorts of pleasure in general noisemaking. We encourage it by asking you to tell us more. 'Really C? Then what happened? You don't say. Tell us all about it.'"
How will I explain to the twins that they spent the first four months of their life propped up in their car seats in the living room with their only source of entertainment being their older brothers. You'd think I could have at least turned on the fan for them.
Maybe that's why N has learned to suck his thumb so efficiently.
They are starting to outgrow some of their newborn clothes. I noticed the yellow jumpsuit that both H and C wore looked a little snug on N this morning. The jumpsuit has a high collar that sticks up and made whichever of my children who was wearing it look like baby Elvis.

song: Ain't That Lovin' You Baby • artist: Elvis Presley

the radish (a couplet in the style of Ogden Nash)

behold the radish
vegetable non gratis

After the Rain has Fallen

Is this the worst spring on record or is the weather just plain cr@p every spring and every year we forget? I realize we've much to be thankful for as there haven't been any earthquakes or tornadoes in the immediate area, but even a meteorological citizen of the world can reserve the right to complain about their own local weather. April vacation week was nicer than the entire month of May so far. I'd like to go out and smell the lilacs but it's too cold.
C spent the morning making lemonade out of an entire bottle of lemon juice. He wanted to set up a lemonade stand. I said it was raining and after lunch he pointed out that the rain had stopped.
"But it's too cold," I said. "People like lemonade when it's hot out and they want something cold to drink."
"We could go down to the bike path and the people who are riding their bikes might be hot."
It's hard to argue with that kind of logic but somehow I managed to get out of going.
As for the garden well let's just be thankful that my family isn't counting on any of that produce as a major food source. The weeds are growing faster than the vegetables. The weeds that thrive on cold, wet, weather that is.
We did harvest some radishes. Radishes - what kind of vegetable is a radish really? It's not the main ingredient in any dish I can think of. At best it's just a salad fixin', and at worst it's a decorative garnish people carve up and don't even eat. I only plant them because they reach maturity faster than any other vegetable, which gives my kids something to pull up early on. They are as close to instant gratification as a garden can get.

song: After the Rain has Fallen • artist: Sting

Stay (I Missed You)

The prom was this past weekend. I was thinking of trying to donate the blue dress I wore my junior year (the dress I bought to match your dad's powder blue Mercades) to one of those shops that will tailor them for girls who otherwise couldn't afford a dress. The websites all request that people only donate dresses that are in style though, I doubt a 23-year old dress qualifies.
Here's what else has been going on.
They've finally started the bike path extension out to North Falmouth. You'd have loved that. Lawrence and Lynch is doing the work and it could be done within a year. Just in time too, you wouldn't believe the price of gas - $72 to fill up the mini van. Remember when I worked bagging groceries at the supermarket and could fill the tank of that big Buick with money from tips?
Deval Patrick was taking heat a while back for a book deal about his life. Shouldn't he at least serve one term as governor before he pontificates in writing about his achievements? His casino plan didn't fly. You'd be happy about that.
They let Bill Buckner throw out the ceremonial opening day first pitch. I remember we were in your Huntington Avenue apartment back in 1986 when that game was being played. We weren't watching it, Mike and Bill were, but we came out at the very end because as you put it, "history's gonna be made."
There's a new Apple store on Boylston Street. The largest in the country. I wish it had been there when we were in school expect of course I wouldn't have had any money to spend and iPods didn't exist back then. They had a picture of the building's facade in Sunday's paper. It's directly across from the Prudential Center. The picture showed that hideous statue of the muscular "superman guy" at the Pru. I know you liked that statue, but I never did.
You know Tower Records is gone. Remember how it used to be open till midnight? We'd go and just rummage through the cassettes (three floors worth) and never buy anything. They've turned it into high end condos.
Sadly, Joyce Kulhawik, entertainment reporter and Simmons grad done good, got laid off from WBZ-TV. I can't remember the last time I watched a theater review on TV news, now I just read them in the paper though it doesn't matter either way because I have four kids and can no longer leave the house. I loved Joyce because she seemed to hate everything she saw.
They are planning to reopen the back entrance to the Museum of Fine Arts. The entrance with the big columns that faces out onto the Fens. The article in the Globe said that barely anyone knows that entrance is there but we used to walk by it all the time. I think I have pictures of you sitting on the steps.
C had kindergarten orientation at your elementary school last week. All us parents were funneled into the cafeteria to listen to school official after school official speak. I know that it's not about me anymore but being in school always has the effect of making me feel self conscious. It didn't help that the twins took turns crying the entire time.
The best news is - they're fixing up Wendell's.

song: Stay (I Missed You) • artist: Lisa Loeb

Deja Vu (All Over Again)

These are the top three questions people ask Ken and me about the twins:
1. How do they sleep?
This is also the top question for all singleton babies as well.
Answer: They sleep with their eyes closed just like everyone else.
What these people really mean is: how much do they sleep? The answer to that question is they sleep a lot, just not all in the same big chunk of time. Let's just say that I've heard the "dawn chorus" so often that I can pretty much sing along.
2. What do their older brothers think of them?
This question is the number two question asked of all secondary siblings.
Answer: I doubt that they "think" about their little brothers all that much. They are much too busy bickering with, and just generally annoying each other to notice two sleeping babies.
3. When one twin cries does it make the other one cry?
This question is specific to twins.
Answer: Not necessarily. In fact they can be lying side by side, one asleep the other crying, and if the one that's crying is taken away, the remaining twin will wake up - and start crying.
While these above truths seem to hold water for all babies, all babies are of course different, even twins. For example on Thursday while I was holding S and talking on the phone, he spit up all over the clean laundry that was in the basket waiting to be hung on the line. I had to rewash it. That evening, while I was giving H a bath and simultaneously changing N, N spit up on me- straight down the front of my sporty new nursing bra.

song: Deja Vu (All Over Again) • artist: John Fogerty:

Magazine

Not only do you need to vote in tomorrow's elections, the library needs you to vote right now on which magazines the library should keep, which they should ditch, and to which new ones they should subscribe.
If only ousting bad politicians were that easy.

album: Magazine • artist: Jump Little Children

Don't Worry Be Happy

I did some spring cleaning in C's room this week. Spring cleaning is defined as moving the furniture to vacuum under it instead of the usual which is leaving everything where it is and vacuuming around it. The great thing about cleaning this week is that it's stayed clean. C's been away since last Saturday with his grandparents visiting my dad's relatives in Canada.
It's been strange looking into his room every night on the way to bed and seeing it empty. It's like he's away at college or something.
Since cleaning involved the use of water, H was more than willing to help out.
"C be so happy," he enthused as we sponged dust off the shelves.
"Next we'll clean your room," I said.
"I be so happy."

song: Don't Worry Be Happy • artist: Bobby McFerrin

Jack & Diane

I have often told Ken that, because there's more than seven years age difference between us, I'm his trophy wife. At 40, I suppose my trophy-wife status is a bit tarnished. I could, however, aspire to cougar status if only I had the energy to seduce men half my age. Too bad I don't because I always wanted to be a cat. Remember when the Aristocats came out? That movie had us all running around in our footy pajamas pretending to be cats.
Now that gay marriage is legal in California I hear that Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are planning to get hitched. Ellen DeGeneres is 50, Portia is 35. Does that make Ellen a gay cougar?

song: Jack & Diane • artist: John Cougar Mellencamp

Can't You Hear Me Knocking

Purely by chance, H and I read this book tonight before bed. See if you can name it from its opening two lines.
On the fifteenth of May in the Jungle of Nool
In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool

song: Can't You Hear Me Knocking • artist: The Rolling Stones

Let It Grow II

Good grief. Would it just warm up, please, so my plants would grow. Our lettuce and radishes have been the same height for a month now. None of the seeds I planted last week have even sprouted. Not to mention H keeps systematically knocking over the bean plants we've been growing inside that I moved next to the living room window so they'd get more sun.

song: Let it Grow • artist: Eric Clapton

Let It Grow

Following a recent rash of birthday parties, the goodie bag has become the bane of my existence. While I was driving us home from a party last Sunday afternoon, C, after comparing his goodie bag to his younger brother's and seeing that the items differed, shouted: "there's something wrong with my goodie bag!" I didn't bother explaining that the goodie bag is a nice gesture from the child hosting the party and not your God-given right as a party goer, it didn't seem like the right time for a "teachable moment." The goodie bags my kids have come home with aren't that bad, as in, they haven't been filled entirely with candy. In fact one bag contained some animal trivia cards that were really interesting. Did you know that there are 1,000 different species of bats? And who couldn't use another super ball?
Generally speaking though, the interest kids show in the contents of a goodie bag seem to be in direct proportion to the time it takes to drive home from the birthday party itself. This might explain why goodie bag items often end up being left all over the back seat of the car.
In January H and C both received goodie bags which contained an item called "grow a bug." You remember how these work. You put them in water and they are suppose to quadruple in size in 72 hours. Well in January C was really into the concept of grow a bug. I could see it in his eyes. He was picturing his bug (a caterpillar) outgrowing our bathtub like the picture book, A Fish Out Of Water, which, incidentally, was written by Dr. Seuss's first wife Helen Palmer. We put his bug, along with his brother's (another caterpillar) in the largest tupperware bowl in the house and filled it with water. For the next 72 hours, when C was downstairs, we brought the tupperware downstairs, when he went upstairs to bed, we perched the tupperware on a chair next to his bed. H, meanwhile, thought the bugs were real and kept taking them out of the water and trying to pet them. C would then yell at him to put the bugs back into the water so they could continue growing.
During this last spate of parties C received a "grow a whale," which boasted it would grow to four times its original size. Skeptical because his bugs failed to fill the bathtub, C reluctantly gave the whale a try. While he was at it he found the two bugs and put them back in the water as well (after you take grow animals out of the water they revert back to their original sizes).
This time, instead of starting off with the biggest tupperware bowl in the drawer, I chose a bowl only slightly larger than the bugs (and whale) themselves, which proved to be a smart move. "Look how much bigger they are," C remarked genuinely impressed, though he didn't feel the need, this time around, to keep the bugs (and whale) next to his bed at night. They did look bigger. I transfered them to another tupperware.
I ended up transferring them into three different tupperware containers before we finally conceded that they weren't going to get any larger. Each time I moved our three "pets" I paid tribute to Roy Scheider by remarking solemnly, "I'm gonna need a bigger boat." Nobody got the joke but so what. I thought I was funny.

song: Let it Grow • artist: Eric Clapton

Eye in the Sky

Ah, Esta, Esta, Esta. When I turned 30, wise Shawna from production assured me that my 30s would be lots better than my 20s. I didn't hear her make any such predictions this year when I turned 40.
Coincidentally I went to three birthday parties last weekend too - two five years olds and H, who turned three.
So were my 30s better than my 20s? Who the heck knows. I can't remember yesterday much less ten years ago. I will tell you this though, when I turned 30 I didn't have a husband, kids, a house (either with or without a white picket fence), or money in the bank. I managed to cover those first three this past decade. Without that much effort on my part either I might add. Sometimes life feel a little bit like that Talking Heads song. How did I get here? This is not my beautiful house. I am not someone's beautiful wife.
As for money in the bank - why there's a new book out every week assuring the rest of us that money doesn't buy us happiness (it's buying books about happiness that buys us happiness).
Ken was 39 when he got married and look - now he's got four kids. Which goes to show that you never know what might happen to you down the road.
It's just like you said, "the sky's the limit."
Well really four is the limit for us personally, but for you my friend - the sky.

song: Eye in the Sky • artist: Alan Parsons Project

Witch Doctor

On Tuesday I planted sugar snap peas and beets in our plot at community gardens. C spent his time in the garden on his stomach, elbow deep in the fish pond trying to catch frogs. When he woke up on Wednesday, his left eye was red. Instead of shipping him off to preschool, all five of us schlepped down to the pediatricians, H for the second time this week (he had a well-baby appointment on Monday). They have good toys at the pediatricians though, so nobody minded spending the morning there. If you've ever been to our pediatricians office you'll know that not only are there great toys in the waiting room, there is a collection of lawn ornament animals outside the front and back of the office. From all the exam rooms parents can distract children by asking them if they see the bear in the tree or having them count concrete rabbits. Clever moms can thereby deftly avoid all talk of needles and immunizations.
After I paid my $15 for eye drops and the assurance C wasn't contagious, we left. Being saddled with two babies in car seats I couldn't corral my big boys into the van fast enough. They headed around to the back of the office for a close-up inspection of the animals. Since they weren't headed for the street I let them go and concentrated on getting the twins into the car. When I went back for them they were smack in the middle of the woodland animals trying to identify them.
The scene was a little surreal and reminded me of something from Hansel and Gretel. There were my children, frolicking in this pastoral scene with baby deer and ceramic squirrels, but instead of chirping birds you could plainly hear the cries of frightened children who were all either about to get shots or be pushed into ovens and eaten by a witch.

song: Witch Doctor • artist: David Seville

Silence is Golden

As a mother, I often wish I could control time. Take one of my twins (when he's not crying), stop time, and just cuddle him for all eternity. There are also plenty of times when I wish I could fast forward through moments of extreme aggravation.
C was noticing the passage of time recently and commenting how some things are unique to a particular moment. For example, he made a mental note that there are five letters in his name and that he's five years old.
"This is the only time that will ever happen." he said solemnly.
On his younger brother's birthday C took H aside and said, "I have some bad news for you, H."
I thought he was going to pontificate on the passage of time and tell H how he'd never be two again but instead he told him: "It's a rainy day on your birthday."
There's a new book out on the benefits of silence. We've really become a nation addicted to self help books if we need a book to tell us that a little silence is good for the soul. Any mother of young children can tell you that silence is more valuable than jewels. Next someone will write a book explaining how sun and water are good for plants or how moisture is bad for your basement.

song: Silence is Golden • artist: Frankie Valli

Smile

Both the twins are smiling. I noticed S for the first time this week. Baby smiles are so great. They are unreserved and big. Babies smile with their whole mouths. Not like the forced, pinched smile that seems to say, "why are you torturing me," which is what you get when you ask an adult to smile for a photograph.
Last night when we put N to bed he looked as if he'd just had a jolt of black coffee. His eyes were wide open. He lay there on his back in bed fixating on the hand he was waving around; staring at it as if he was stoned.
"Hey man. Check this out. It's my hand."
I know it's impossible for someone to look as if they are simultaneously experiencing both a caffeine high and a pot-induced high - impossible, that is, unless that someone is three-months old.

song: Smile • artist: John Turner, Geoffrey Parsons and Charlie Chaplin

Old

Today is H's birthday. He is three. To celebrate, his older brother gave him a present - a card with one dollar and seventy-five cents in it.
One dollar and seventy-five cents.
Why one dollar and seventy-five cents? Earlier in the week it was only going to be one dollar. How did H's net worth nearly double in the course of the week? I couldn't tell you, but C was really excited about his gift. He couldn't wait to give H this monetary token of his affection.
It's my mother's birthday later in the month. C says he's going to give her a dollar.
As for H, his latest thing is recognizing letters. First it was only H, upper and lower case. He points out H's everywhere. In the usual spots like the pages of books and on street signs, but also in unusual places like the H at the end of Falmouth painted onto the high school track and the H in the middle of FHS.
One night he pointed to my forehead wrinkles, the ones on my nose, between my eyes, and announced "that a H."

song: Old • artist: Paul Simon

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

Yesterday Doug and his girls came over to our house. Doug is the only parent I can have over because our houses are equally messy.
The kids all played in the backyard and got on reasonably well. Having someone smaller than him to push around proved too much of a temptation for H who acted didactically. He gave instructions such as, "don't run in garden!" while he himself demonstrated exactly what running in the garden looked like. He also protested loudly whenever one of the girls picked up a baby toy despite his own penchant for hoarding the twins toys.
Doug's oldest daughter kept calling me by my first name. As in, "Look Joanne, the baby is crying" and "I want to show the ladybug to Joanne." It was nice. Like we were friends instead of me being the nagging Mommy who spends the majority of her day saying things like, "you two need to work it out for yourself," "please put your shoes on the stairs," "put the cat down," and my personal favorite, "everyone wears undies."
Doug thinks that it is only by having children that we are able to get anything done. His theory is that before having children, you might have sat around with a limitless expanse of time and no sense of urgency to get anything done. But as a parent you only have this brief window of free time, which makes you hyper-productive whenever the chance to get things done presents itself. In this way, you can accomplish in 20 minutes what, before children, would have taken hours to complete.
Interestingly, Doug is the only person I know who has managed to take up new hobbies since having children. Most of us are barely able to find time to do the things that, before having children, we enjoyed.
I don't know if this proves his theory so much as it confirms the sainthood of his wife.
When I have an extra 20 minutes the hobby I most often pursue is buying birthday presents for five year olds. I swear that if it weren't for C's constant need for party gifts, I'd never leave the house. Today it was Brady who, thankfully, "likes dinosaurs."

song: I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself • artist: Dusty Springfield

sour milk (a couplet)

the gartner twins
are spit up kings

Volcano

Out there somewhere is a doctor who saved the life of a patient today; but my magnum opus was creating a baking soda and vinegar volcano out of H's plastic Dairy Queen cup. A darn good volcano too. My original plan was that this was going to be the day I finally cleaned the Christmas greens out of the front door window boxes but it looks as if a sparrow's built a nest in there - again - this year.

song: Volcano • artist: Jimmy Buffett

Eyes Without A Face

The Once-ler and my son - separated at birth?
This picture, the one not by Dr. Seuss, is from the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester. Highly recommended for little Lancelot enthusiasts.

song: Eyes Without A Face • artist: Billy Idol

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Blue Period

How Picasso got started.

song: Blue Period • artist: the Smithereens

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Anything You Can Do

The Globe printed another letter to the editor from yours truly. If you're so inclined you can follow the link and read the article to which the letter references.
And just for the record I typed this post while nursing a baby as well - so there!

song: Anything You Can Do • musical: Annie Get Your Gun

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Stay Up Late

I've never been one, but I imagine nursing a baby is a like being a ventriloquist. You sit down with this rag doll-like small person on your lap, and drinking a glass of water is usually part of the show. Nursing two babies is like being a ventriloquist who gets invited back for an encore performance.
I was using the breast pump last night (a beastly thing if you've never had the pleasure) and everything went fine until I detached it and went to put it down on the table. There was some milk left on the rim and it dripped onto my computer's speakers. Great. I'll be the only person who has to bring their laptop in for service because it's had breast milk spilled on it.

song: Stay Up Late • artist: Talking Heads

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Color My World

Here's the earth day report. It's eco everything these days isn't it? According to the Boston Globe, the Clear Conscience Cafe in Central Square calls its waitstaff "environmental stewards." Sorry guys, John Todd is an environmental steward, your server at the Clear Conscience, despite the organic coffee, is not.
Cotuit is having an ecofashion show this weekend. The clothing aren't actually eco friendly, the event raises money for a company which supports renewable energy and environmental education programs. I hate to bring this up but real ecofashion means darning (remember darning?) old socks and wearing the same clothes this summer that you wore last summer.
Our grandmothers were environmentalists.
Speaking of grandmothers, my Nana Briana used to force me to color with my left hand. Well force is a bit extreme, she didn't tie my right hand behind my back or anything. The reason she gave for wanting me to learn to color with my left hand was in the event that I ever broke my right (which, remarkably, did happen) I'd still be able to color. Later I decided that the real reason my Nana wanted me to color with my left hand was because we were sitting side by side on the couch and if I colored with my right hand I would be elbowing her. That's the kind of thing you don't figure out until you become a parent for yourself. Instead of saying to a five year old, "stop elbowing me," you propose, "for fun, let's color with our left hand today shall we?"
But now, I think the real, real, reason she wanted me to be ambidextrous was so that years later I'd be able to hold a nursing a baby in my right arm and still be able to function moderately well, typing, eating dinner, or jotting down the date and time in a nursing chart, with my left hand.

song: Color My World • artist: Chicago

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Undercover Angel

The CC Times is asking Mariah Carey fans to contact them for an upcoming story. Their blurb states that Ms. Carey has recently surpassed Elvis in number one singles. Most likely, the paper included the comparison in order to put Ms. Carey's accomplishment into perspective. Elvis died over 30 years ago. I'll bet if the paper ran an article tomorrow asking Elvis fans to contact the paper, plenty of people would call in. Who's going to remember Mariah Carey 30 years from now?
On the other hand, some people need only one hit single to attain musical immortality, at least in certain circles.
Last week, in perhaps my biggest brush with greatness since I met Cheryl Wheeler in the bathroom of Christine's Restaurant during a power outage, Alan O'Day left a comment on my poetry blog.

song: Undercover Angel • artist: Alan O'Day

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It's My Party

On Friday I purchased the perfect present for Will. After C informed be about Will's penchant for chasing the girls around the playground and scaring them, he coughed up this more helpful information, "get something with cheetahs or pirates." He added that, "pirates would be easier to find."
I found a build-your-own pirate ship kit and a small cheetah figurine to tie onto the top of the wrapped present. I thought I'd done pretty well considering I'd again waited until the last minute (the day of the party), to buy a gift.
Unfortunately the party was cancelled when Will came down with a fever, proving that the gods laugh at the best laid plans of mice, men, mostly stay-at-home moms, and five-year-old birthday boys.
The next preschool birthday party is on May 3rd. My only hope is that Brady also covets cheetahs and pirate ships.

song: It's My Party • artist: Lesley Gore

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

I've been reading the book Eat Pray Love for the past two months and counting. You know the story, divorced American woman travels to exotic locales to find herself. Her first stop is Italy. In between each of Elizabeth Gilbert's chapters, there's this symbol. I thought at first it was a meat ball. It looks like a meat ball. She's in Italy right? Well, I didn't just think it at first, I thought it for the first 39 chapters. Finally I reached the second third of the book and our heroine is in India but the meatballs remain. Then I realized they're not meatballs, they're suppose to be prayer beads, one single prayer bead between chapters.
I may not be on the way to enlightenment but at least now I'm not getting hungry every time I pick up the book

song: Scenes from an Italian Restaurant • artist: Billy Joel

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Always Something There to Remind Me

Isn't it funny how some things that you wouldn't expect take you straight back in time to your childhood. Because it was on sale, Ken recently bought iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce! Who knew they were even growing iceberg lettuce anymore what with mesclun and field greens being all the rage. Iceberg lettuce was a staple of the 1970s at least in our house, right down to the special Tupperware you could buy for it with the bump in the lid to accommodate the head. Growing up, we always had iceberg lettuce in our fridge. It lasted forever and never went bad. Must have been the special Tupperware. Strange though, I remember having iceberg lettuce in our house, but I don't remember ever eating any salad.
Maybe next week Ken will bring home Shake 'n Bake.

song: Always Something There to Remind Me • artist: Naked Eyes

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Girl Happy

There's another birthday party to go to this weekend. This one's for Will. As I still haven't found the perfect universal gift for five year old boys, I'll be making another trek to the toy store and wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles. I asked C for some ideas.
"What does Will like? Does he like dinosaurs? Cars?"
"You know what Will really likes, Momma"
"No. What?"
"He likes to chase the girls around and scare them"
Great. Perhaps he'd like a DVD copy of Alfie.

song: Girl Happy • artist: Elvis Presley

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Why I Don't Know

Technology is making us stupid that's for sure. Now that we have GPS, no one needs to know how to read a map. We don't have to remember phone numbers that are programmed into our cell phones. We don't have to recognize a friend or a relative's voice on the phone either since - knock, knock - caller ID tells us who's there.
The mini van came with Sirius satellite radio. Now, instead of learning something about the world by listening to NPR while driving around, I can turn the dial to the all-Broadway all-the-time channel and play name that musical with myself.
But, even though I'm rotting my brain with Oklahoma revivals, It hasn't completely atrophied.
Case and point, C caught a ladybug last week at Nana and Papa's house which he brought home to live at our house in a jar. Yesterday he told me he was going to put some wood in the jar for the it.
"Why would the lady bug need wood?" I asked.
"Lady bugs eat wood."
"Lady bugs don't eat wood."
"Yes they do, the lady at the pet store said so."
I told him that the lady at the pet store might know about snakes eating mice but that I was pretty sure lady bugs do not eat wood.
"How do you know. You don't work in a pet store."
Later in the day we went to the Spring Fling program at the library. After the naturalist was finished talking about frogs and turtles I told C to go ahead and ask her if lady bugs eat wood.
That's pet-store employee 0, mommy 1.

song: Why I Don't Know • artist: Lyle Lovett

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I'm being swallowed by a boa constrictor

On Friday H and C spent the afternoon with my dad at the Independent Mall pet store watching a snake eat a mouse.
They told me all about it:
H: Momma, snake should not eat a mouse.
C: So whenever the mouse takes a breath, the snake squeezes it harder.
Then they went off to bed. You'd think they'd have had nightmares about it. I wasn't even there and I think I'm going to have nightmares about it.

song: I'm being swallowed by a boa constrictor • artist: Shel Silverstein

Cruisin

C wants to go on a cruise. Not just any cruise either, the other day he asked me when we could go on the Queen Mary.
I don't know where he even heard of the Queen Mary. The only cruise ship we ever talk about, is the Titanic.
"Isn't the Queen Mary the boat they made into a restaurant in California?" I asked my five year old; because if anyone could tell me, it would be him. He didn't know about that but any boat turned into a restaurant sounded appealing to him, "when can we go on that?" he wondered.
Later I told him about the Queen Elizabeth II. Why settle for the Queen Mary I told him. Then came the bad part. The price starts at $2,000 per person, plus we would have to get home from London once the cruise was over.
"So that's $12,000 for all of us," he announced with breathtaking accuracy.
"Yep."
"I'll give you $2 of my money," he offered after some consideration.
Woah, a two-dollar discount? Southampton here we come.

song: Cruisin' • artist: Smokey Robinson

Shades of Gray

These are some color descriptions from the Land's End summer catalogue. Close you eyes an picture: island lime, vivid yellow, rich red, leaf, white, and admiral blue. One could wonder about leaf, is that a leaf in spring, fall, or winter; but since it's the summer catalogue, picturing a green leaf is a safe bet.
Now, close your eyes and try to picture some of the colors described in two of my earthy-crunchy outdoorsy catalogues: silt, charcoal, ash, moss, mud, acorn, rust, sand, coal, surf, granite, dirt, fern, yam, clay, salamander, flamingo and stone.
I appreciate a little creativity but this is going too far. Like a child mixing paints who just can't seem to stop until everything turns to brown, these catalogues need to quit before they get either too confusing or too ridiculous. It's as if they are trying to outdo each other in "green" color descriptions. Not only is it confusing, some of it's down right unappealing. For starters, what kind of salamander are we talking about? The black ones with the yellow spots that are getting all kinds of press lately? The little orange ones we've seen in Four Ponds Conservation Area? Frankly, salamander just makes me think slimy thoughts, not something I want to think about when I think of new clothes. And how about mud? Mud makes me think of what my kids clothes look like after it rains and they've been out playing in the - well - mud. Again, not how I picture new clothes.
There's a skirt I was thinking of ordering but I can't choose between dirt and fern. I should probably go for dirt, that way, when it gets dirty, no one will notice. Yams aren't a vegetable I want to eat much less wear. At this stage in my life yams remind me of baby spit up and I have that on my clothing already. As for coal, isn't coal a dirty, non-renewable pollutant?
A lot of the colors are all just the same color. A sweater for example that comes in henna, mud, and rose. I'm having a hard time choosing because basically they're all brown.
When the earthy-cruncy catalogues aren't coming up with 50 different mud-based ways to say brown they have another way to say it: coffee. There are sweatpants in espresso, t-shirts in coffee, pants in java, a reversible cardigan in latte, and a skirt in hazelnut.
I finally decided on some tunic pants. In black.

song: Shades of Gray • artist: The Monkeys

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My Hometown

I'm not saying any of this ever happened to me - but here are some things that could happen to you if, as an adult, you still live in your own home town.
1. You might give directions using landmarks that no longer exist as in, "the parking lot for the bike path is just after Lil' Peach."
2. You might have to skip the cereal aisle at the supermarket because you can hear that your loud-mouthed ex-boss from a decade ago is conversing there. 2a. You might spend 10 minutes in the supermarket locked in conversation with someone whose name you can't remember.
3. Your sons might end up attending the elementary school behind which you and your high school boyfriend did unspeakable things.
4. You might run into a former classmate in line at the coffee shop and when he asks you "what's new," you blurt out rudely, "in the past 20 years?" instead of the more appropriate, "not much."
5. You might realize that you are now older than all your teachers were when you were in high school and junior high school.
6. You might run into those same teachers at bars.
7. You might segway straight from being paranoid that all the cool kids in high school are talking about you, to being paranoid that all the cool moms at preschool are talking about you.
8. You might run into the good friend of an exboyfriend and tell him his little boy is adorable. Then he'll tell you that's his daughter.
9. You might run into people who still, after 25 years, insist on adding an "a" to the end of your first name.
10. You might run into people who say, "I know you, you're (insert your own younger/older sibling here) sister."

song: My Hometown • artist: Bruce Springsteen

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I'll Never Find Another You

C met the girl of his dreams the other day at the Children's Museum. She likes to hide and he likes to count. It's a hide-and-seek match made in heaven.

song: I'll Never Find Another You • artist: The Seekers

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867-3509

C has been typing e-mails and sending them back and forth to me and Ken, first on one computer, then on the other. It's cute, I get all these e-mails that say "I love you mommy" since that's all he knows how to type. The problem is that I feel guilty putting them in the trash, they're cute, but I'm not sure I need to save all 20 of them.
Sometimes he includes our phone number in the message since he knows that as well as "I love you." Then the e-mails start to look a little like porn spam directed at someone with a mother fixation, "I love you, but you know you need a spanking, call me at this 1-800-number, your momma."

song: 867-5309 • artist: Tommy Tutone

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Busy Being Fabulous

Celebrate Christine's birthday!
song: Busy Being Fabulous • artist: The Eagles

Pillow Talk

The Boppy has always reminded me of the thneed. The thneed is the seemingly useless object the Once-ler makes out of truffula trees in my favorite Dr. Suess book, The Lorax. Like the thneed, the Boppy is a "fine something that all [babies] need." It offers, according to its website, "ergonomically correct support" for expectant mothers, nursing mothers, babies in need of tummy time, babies who just need a little help sitting up, and, the family cat.

song: Pillow Talk • artist: Doris Day

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The Greatest American Hero

Being the mother of two-month old twins, or teeny tiny twins as the woman at the post office called them today, occasionally has its advantages. One is that people's expectations of you are really low. If I can drag myself and the boys out of the house, even if I'm wearing the same clothes I've had on for three days people, still tell me that I'm incredible. A woman in the toy store the Friday before Easter told me I was nothing less than "remarkable," and when I told one of the mother's at the preschool pot luck that I was nursing the twins she said, "you know you're a superhero don't you?"
So that's what it takes to be a superhero. And to think that on Friday I was happy just to be a mechanic.

song: The Greatest American Hero • artist: Joey Scarbury

ps. It seemed easier to put the poem of the day on its own website so that's what I did. Click here for today's poetry fix.

Ode to National Poetry Month (a couplet)

In honor of April being National Poetry Month, in addition to my usual incredibly witty banter, I propose to publish an original poem every day, and, (thankfully for you), some prose by a real poet.

Ode to National Poetry Month (a couplet)
to rhyme one line
takes little time

Because I didn't acknowledge March as Women's History month (just wait till next year), this first poem is by Dorothy Parker.
 
One Perfect Rose
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
'My fragile leaves,' it said, 'his heart enclose.'
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.