Nothing Rhymes with Moira

The triathlon and the 5k

2011-08-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

I am trying very hard not to be one of those mothers who talks about how easy boys are and how hard grls are.

But.

If G is a triathlon that stretches over choppy waters, mountainous terrain, and muddy trails, d is a flat 5k on a clear, cool, bright morning. Both could be challenging. Both could be easy. It just depends on how you feel that day, how you've trained, and how you want to run the race.

D loves to smile. He smiles at his mama. He smiles at his dada. He smiles at his big sister. He smiles at the bagger at the grocery store, at the couple walking down the street, at his own reflection in the mirror. He smiles when he wakes up. He smiles as he is falling asleep lying next to me holding my hand. He just smiles all the time.

G gives nothing away for free. She is up and down in a matter of nanoseconds. She is refusing to go outside. She is kicking her legs as I try to get her dressed. She is demanding another Elmo. She is crawling under the bathroom stall and running for the door at the zoo leaving me with my pants down and d hanging from my chest in the Bjorn.

Then she is also:

Explaining that the green tomatoes grow on a vine.
Asking me if I had a good night sleep.
Carefully trying to measure out the flour for cookies.
Moving her head to the beat of a new song.

D is amazed by her. He looks at her, eyes wide, mouth agape and is in awe.

Even this early in mama-ing two kids, I feel two very different relationships emerging. I want to protect d. I want to hang out with G. Maybe it's their ages at this point, or maybe I am becoming one of those mothers who talks about how they "cherish" their boys and rely on their grls. Ick. It's just that G seems so complicated and d so straight-forward. I guess they are just like two very different races. At least I know I love triathlons and 5ks equally well.

Summer Storms in Colorado

2011-07-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

Storms come up fast in the Rocky Mountains and summer evenings are prone to electrifying displays of nature. I spent a couple summers there in a former life and would often get caught in such shows while out on a run. But just as fast as a storm would glissade around a mountain peak and throw her fury at me with rain, hail and lighting, she would move on, leaving behind her a dissipating sky of oranges, yellows, purples and blues. And soon the outside mountain-side bars serving pitchers (pitchers!) of Fat Tire would fill once more.

G is a passionate lady. And sometimes her passions lie in rather ridiculous places. For example, she needs her pink polka dotted blanket to make a perfect rectangle lying over her. None of the edges can be turned up and both of her feet must at all times be completely covered. A misplaced polka dot could mean the difference between mellow time and meltdown time.

A few months after G was born, I applied for a new job. I emailed them my resume, some writing clips, and my family's 2009 reunion flyer. I was reunion chair that year and instead of sending the prospective employer my references, I sent them a list of what each family member needed to bring to the reunion. (Appetizer: Deanne, Lori and Chris; Decorations: Caleb, Abby and Susie.) When the employer emailed me about my mistake, I wrote back, "Well, I thought you might want to meet my family too!"

I never heard back from them.

G has a new scooter. She rocks on it. The grl is two years old and she rides that thing down the street like she was made for it. Yesterday, she got so excited to get out there on the road that as she was going to get her scooter, she ran over to it and stepped on it off balance and ended up in the splits on the ground crying. I picked her up and let her cry a bit and wondered if she would like to take a scooter break. Nope. Her tears dried and moments later we were back on the streets trying to master steering.

Last week I went to an audition. I wore a pink skirt and some makeup, shook the music director's hands, chatted about my background a bit and then the director turned to me and asked. "So, what did you bring to sing for us today?"

Right. Music. I knew I was forgetting something.

"Nothing!" I said, attempting to remain calm but wondering if it just wouldn't be better to turn and run out of the church without even saying goodbye, leaving them in a blur of pastels.

"Nothing? You brought nothing?" the organist gasped.

I ended up singing something I didn't know badly, shook hands again, smiled, thanked everyone and walked out on the verge of tears.

I seem to carry around my failures in a little space in my head and can without warning be suddenly and unexpectedly haunted by mishaps that happened decades ago. My grl has no such space. She falls. She cries. She gets up. She forgets. It's that easy. The weather may be stormy, but it will pass quickly and the sun will come out again soon.

Every now and then for a brief second, something about the city air smells like Colorado after a storm. I chase the smell down the street, but it always seem to evade me.

The Dance

2011-06-08T19:38:00.000-07:00

I described G to a friend recently saying what a smart two year old she is, already speaking in complex sentences, singing the alphabet and counting to 20.
"That's good. She will be successful in life then," he said.
"I don't care what she does as long as she's happy," I told him, stealing words and sentiments from my Mother.

G is a passionate and fiery kid. She loves to smile and laugh and wail on her drums and run down the street as fast as she can, and listen to music on 11. ("Turn it up! Turn it up!" she demands in the car.) The grl really sucks the marrow from every second she can. At the end of the day she is dirty and sweaty with strawberry and chocolate stains and chalk and bubbles all over the front of her shirt. Her hair is a wet mop on the top of her head and her legs are covered in little cuts and bruises. The grl does not live life half-assed.

I have a hard time figuring out how to respond to "How was your day?" Trying to keep two kids under two alive and occupied and engaged in a day is both the best and worst of times. There are good seconds and there are bad seconds. One moment G is belting out, "Tomorrow" and d is cooing on my lap, and the next G is wigging about the improper placement of her blanket and d is puking all over me. Some days I feel like I am running up a hill, and it's good, I like to run and all and the weather is pretty good and my knees feel ok in my news shoes and stuff, but man, I would really like to get to a little plateau to take a breath somewhere up ahead.

I wonder often what makes people happy, what drives people, what people would do if they could do absolutely anything with their days. Is it the right job? Money? Relationships? Or is it something more intangible like a sense of accomplishment, or the feeling you get from pushing yourself and getting out of your comfort zone as my cross country coach would say. Whatever it is, we all seem to need something to make us happy.

We have this toy that plays really bad, distorted sounding music that goes faster or slower depending on how fast you draw on it. It doesn't play complete songs. It just starts and stops in random places. G re- discovered the toy this evening and started dancing to it. Her dancing is made up of the most awkward looking, unnatural movements you have ever seen. It's a staccato dance that highlights her body's hinges: elbows and knees, wrists and hips all moving in various directions. And she throws her limbs into the air so hard, she throws herself off balance at times, stumbling a second before continuing her dervish. There is absolutely no grace involved. She is just so swept up by the music that she seems to have very little control over her body.

It is awesome.

G doesn't need a job, or money, or friends, or a sense of accomplishment or that feeling you get when you push yourself or any of that to feel happy. She just is. Why does it have to be more complicated than that?

Yesterday, at the end of the day, G said to no one particular, "That was a good day."
I hope my grl always dances her weird, primal, a-rhythmic dance.

Top 10 of my favorite things people have said to pregnant me

2011-03-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

You look great!
You look tired!
You look exhausted.
You look green.
Are those your husband’s pants?
You look like you're about to pop!
Wow.
Damn.
My kid weighed 10 pounds. I should have had a c section. I tore A LOT.
And my personal favorite from a co-worker I hardly know:
Boy, you must really like to breed.

What were your favorite comments previously-pregnant or pregnant-peeps out there? This is where I am in my pregnancy! Just annoyed! I feel there are very well meaning-ed people out there who cross the line at times when it comes to conversing with a pregnant lady. And guys can be even weirder just by the way they look at a pregnant chick- like they can't decide if they want to protect her or seduce her.

Does being this pregnant feel a little like wearing a version of the Scarlet Letter? Pregnancy is no longer cute at this point.

I am clearly hormonal and tired. I am sure the non-pregnant me will soon think the pregnant me ridiculous.

But seriously, if I get into the elevator one more time and someone asks me my due date, I may lose it. Although I guess that's better than someone commenting on my breeding...

Things

2011-03-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

-I feel as though Two keeps growing, but the skin around him does not, giving me the uncomfortable feeling of wearing a pair of pants that are three sizes too small.

-When the 20-something girl sharing the swim lane beside me asks if I am alright, maybe that's a good indication that I should stop swimming.

-Please, stop looking at me - everyone.

-I really should have re-thought the two piece Speedo. Go ahead everyone, stare away...

-It is a known fact that when you bring your toddler to the doctor's appointment, you will have to wait approximately 41 minutes before you are seen by the doctor. When you bring your book to the doctor's office, ("oh, bliss! I have a doctor's appointment today! I can crack open that new library book, finally!") you will have to wait approximately one minute to be seen by the doctor. I guess it's sort of like Paddington Bear bringing his umbrella outside on sunny days.

-I am waiting (as are the toys, clothes and crumbs littered around my apartment) to feel that nesting faze come over me.

-I like it that pregnant women have something in common with birds.

- Two must sleep with his hands clenched and his arms straight out in front of him. When I lie down, it feels like I am lying on one of the corners of G's books.

-I am pretty sure he's a he in there.

-My husband referred to my belly as "engorged" tonight because he says he thought that was the nicest way to put it.

-I want to be one of those moms who knows all the other moms on the playground.

-I don't want to be one of those moms who knows all the other moms on the playground.

-All the women my age at the Oscars looked depressingly old, and they have nannies and masseuses and nutritionists and trainers and people who clean their bathrooms and...I am doomed.

A Letter to Baby Two

2011-02-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

Dear Baby Two,

Hi, this is your mama. I don't know you at all yet. I am not skilled at that intuition stuff that is supposed to make me feel as if I know you already even though you are only the size of a pineapple. Even so, this early in our lives together, I would already like to apologize to you. I think I have neglected you the last eight months. By the time I was this far along with G, I had filled almost an entire journal of mama musings. I had painted G's room, bought her new furniture, looked at a million day cares, washed all of her new newborn clothes in special baby detergent and stenciled green stars over her crib.

For you? I have done nothing. I even keep forgetting to order newborn diapers. Even worse, the only time I really think of you in a live, little human person way, and not as an octopus in my belly with eight arms hitting me from all angles, is when I think of you in the context of how it will affect G. I wonder if this is the beginning of a your life of neglect from your mama. Oh dear, I can already see you reading that birth order book when you're 10 and drawing conclusions that are bound to make me feel bad.

So, let me just say now, before you're even out: I'm sorry. It's just that G was here first, Two, and therefore, she is all that I can think about and all that I can fathom loving so much and all that I imagine having in my life. I just can't wrap my head around you. G has been this gale-like force that has knocked me on my butt, slapped me around a bit, but ultimately has lead me to discover the real use for my heart. What more can you do that G has not already done? And then to top it off, I don't know how you will win: I worry how I will cope if you are like G (screaming banshee for eight months), but then I worry how I will react if you are not like G (chatty toddler who likes to sing along to such bands as The Beatles, Paramore and Patty Griffin. )

You are following a tough act, Little Person in there, and I am sorry about that. That's just the way it is. Which reminds me, I should probably make sure I remove G's name from over your crib...

Sheesh, maybe I should just give you the birth order book as you exit the womb.

Legacy

2011-01-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

Someone at work has told me a couple of times that people who work part-time do not make work a priority. I think about this often. The remark seems pretty biting, unfounded, upsetting and discouraging.

But recently, I have been thinking deeper.

My aunt and my grandmother died, both within this month. When I heard the news that they were gone, the first thing that came to my mind was not, how much money they had, how much prestige they had, or even how much time they gave to their communities. The first thing that came to my mind on both occasions was: Wow, they raised such amazing people.

My aunt was a fiery woman who knew she always wanted to have 10 kids even though she grew up an only child. She taught me first-hand about "colorful" language, and was shocked to realize that my naive 13-year-old self did not know what the word "gay" meant.

My grandmother commanded the room in an opposite manner: through silence. Yet she was no push-over either, and somehow always seemed to let her opinions be known. She once cut off her grown daughter who had poured herself a second glass of wine.

I thought of them tonight as I was singing lullaby number 15 to G, after I had read her 10 books and given her one back rub (“wit' cream, mama”). It’s hard to imagine either one of them doing that with one of the 16 kids between them. But that certainly didn't affect the people they produced.

They were both mothers first. And although I can’t really say what they were like as mothers, I can look at the people they made and have a pretty good idea that they were pretty great mothers, even if they may have been a little different from me.

I guess I hope at the end of my life, that I won’t be judged by the money I made, the articles I got published or the races I ran, I guess I hope that I will be judged by my greatest product, my greatest gift to the world, my best and hardest work and yes, my priority, my kids. I think and hope that G will best represent me.

Baby Deadline

2011-01-18T19:12:00.001-08:00

I have this feeling that I recognize from when I was pregnant with G. As the countdown begins to baby two, I have that feeling that I am about to enter a void, a place where I have no life, no opportunities, little income and limited mobility. To counter that feeling, I am trying to find new projects and opportunities to fit in before I enter that baby space. But I am quickly realizing that my baby deadline is getting close.

Today T and I stopped by Starbucks on our way home from the doc's and sat there for a bit before rushing home to G. I watched another mom with her little girl and envied her a bit cause she was there with her cute little lady who was wearing an awesome embroidered long pink coat and saying funny and astute things like, "Why do I have to be quiet in Starbucks?" The mom looked tired and unamused. It was the end of the day. She had been running around all day with her grl. She was waiting for her husband to come home to have someone to talk to and someone to take on the responsibility of parent. She probably looked a lot like me at the end of my G days.

A mama friend of mine and I spoke today about feeling stuck: unable to move forward in our careers, but also unwilling to risk moving forward for fear that it would compromise the flexibility and comfort of our jobs that make it easy for us to be mamas first.

Why do we have to have more now? What is more? Do we know that "more" is better?

G and I have been a little off these days, between her whines and my hormones. Her "I want dada,"s make me crazy. I wonder if she senses that I am going to have another baby priority soon? I feel like she is moving away from me a bit. Man, that seems like such a dumb thing to say. But maybe we are both bracing ourselves for what is to come. Thinking back, the worst times in my relationship with my Mom came before big, life changes like college and marriage. Maybe that's how moms and daughters do it, even if the daughter can't even say "life change" yet, let alone understand it.

But tomorrow is a new day! It's wide open for G and me and we are going to make the most of it. We are going to seize the day! live in the moment! and not care about baby deadlines, hormones, whines, or the impending void. We are just going to play, and drink hot chocolate and not worry about any of that.

Round Two

2010-11-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

G lifted up her shirt and pointed to her belly at my doctor's appointment yesterday and announced to the waiting room, "Baby."

Try explaining that there is a baby in mama's belly to a 21-month old. It's almost as crazy as trying to explain it to the mama: "So, there is this person inside me and today he or she grew ears. And tomorrow, he/she will start sucking his/her thumb and the next day, maybe open his/her eyes and react to a light shown outside my belly. Oh! and he/she is breathing liquid and at times gets the hiccups." Ok, right. That's totally easy to warp my head around.

The Safeway cashier who scanned my pregnancy test, stopped abruptly to ask. "Whoewah, does the fahrtha know?"

Being pregnant a second time is a lot less of a big deal. No parties. Not as much sympathy. Fewer random back rubs from T. It's like I know too much about what is to come this time around, so it feels less exciting and a little more...exhausting. But then on the good side, Round Two feels more normal, less stressful and more confident.

Pregnancy, in general, is not all that fun to me, as my random puking on Friday night might suggest. And yet, being pregnant is at the same time sort of magical, or spiritual, or something. It's sort of like proof of God. It's just too amazing and mind-boggling to be a random act of nature. And it seems that other people who smile at me on the street when they see my swollen belly, may subconsciously think the same.

That must be why people love to touch a pregnant belly or ask a pregnant woman about her due date, or how she feels, or if she's excited, or if she wants a boy or a girl. And while, I don't love to be called, "cute," as most 30 somethings probably don't, I have to realize, it's not really about me. I think people just have this desire to be close even for a second, to a pregnant woman because of what she symbolizes. No matter what people do or do not believe, or how cynical the world is, or how much financial trouble the US is in, a pregnant woman can often be this sign of hope or goodness or a sign of just something way bigger and way more important than any one of us.

The other day G lifted up my shirt to kiss my belly. Then she pulled my shirt back down and said, "Bye Bye Baby." She doesn't really get what's going on. But then, it's a pretty crazy concept for anyone, really. That must be what makes it so amazing.

The Crazy Mama and the Starbucks Experience

2010-11-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

At one point in time, long, long ago, the fall time change meant another hour of sleep. Now, as every mama knows, it only means another hour of awake. My grandfather used to say that daylight savings time was all for the golfers. I am pretty sure he said that with a little bit of disdain. He wasn't a golfer. He was a railroad engineer who worked nights, so I bet he wasn't too fond of random messings with time. Me, I think maybe Starbucks is in on daylight savings. They know that the mamas will be needing an extra cup when their kid starts to make a habit of 5 am rises. Time change=more coffee.

This is why G and I found ourselves in Starbucks this morning, way before the 9-5ers were well-caffeinated. I love my neighborhood. There are plenty of every kind of people in my hood: mamas, nannies, partiers, druggies, rich, poor, cool boot wearing women, homeless, shoeless man. I love the diversity, even if I do get a little annoyed when the junkie on our block reprimands me for not having shoes on G. (This has happened twice, from two different stoopers.) It's a great place to live. BUT, Starbucks before 9 am on a weekday with a toddler who is trying to shove over the VIA coffee display feels a little...uncomfortable.

T and I decided a while ago that all mamas are crazy. And this I now know for a fact. This morning, I actually felt crazy. Or I felt like everyone else felt I was crazy.
But then, YOU try to keep one eye on an active toddler in a crowded space, with breakables everywhere, while at the same time keeping tabs on your purse, your place in line, your over-sized stroller and your husband's drink order. It's actually much harder than the non-mama might think.

However, if I were to be completely honest, I would have to admit that I add to the crazy a bit. Zen, I am not. For example, why do I feel I must speak to G in a louder voice than I would to anyone else?

G, MY GRL, DID YOU LOOSE YOUR STRAW ALREADY? OK, MAMA WILL GO GET YOU ANOTHER ONE. JUST WAIT RIGHT THERE, K? MAMA WILL BE BACK. STAY THERE. IT'S OK. LOOK, YEAH! MAMA FOUND A NEW STRAW. WHAT DO YOU SAY, MY GRL? THANK YOU MAMA? OK, SWEET GRL. YOU'RE MY GRL. THANK YOU MY GRL. I LOVE YOU MY GRL.

Then my stroller made a break for it, hitting the guy in a green bowtie (yes, a bowtie, on a Wednesday morning.) and then it nicked the women in the Stilettos. (I have absolutely no idea what kind of shoes they were. All I know is they were not walking shoes.) So after I cursed T silently for not re-hooking up the stroller break, I grabbed it and tried to stash it in a corner, which was really a corner of no return in the back of the shop between the door and the mega coffee line. Luckily, some woman who no doubt thought I was crazy saved the stroller, dragging it around the people and closer to the door. "Jesus Woman!" I could hear her say in her head, "Get it together!"

As I went to pay for my coffee, uber conscious of the line behind me and the depth of my purse, I threw my bag on the counter. It was then that I felt the beady eyes of judgement. I just picked up a $168 Lucky bag from the outlet for $50 bucks. But these people didn't know this. All they knew was that I used more than two adjectives to order my coffee, I was slightly out of control in my mama-ing, and that I had just casually thrown a $168 bag on the Starbucks counter. U.G.H. I thought, they think I am "one of THOSE mamas." I don't know what that means, really, but I am sure it's not a compliment.

TO top it all off, Bowtie squeezed by G and me at the door as I was trying to figure out how to handle three drinks, a purse, a toddler and a runaway stroller, without losing or killing anyone, and without feeling more obtrusive than I already did. Bowtie didn't even look at us. He just walked right out the door, with not even an "excuse me," as he let the door close behind him.

When I returned home around 8:17 a.m., I was exhausted.

The truth is, I don't think those people in Starbucks thought much about G and me. They were too busy thinking about their own lives, schedules, and bowties. I was just something else they would have to maneuver around that day. I was just another Crazy Mama, in Starbucks, ordering an expensive drink with an expensive bag, with a toddler, before 9 a.m., with a rather large stroller, and a big voice, trying to keep her head on straight while also getting (for the love of God!) a little caffeine.

I swear, Starbucks is totally in on the time change.

Random Musings

2010-09-22T11:53:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine describes parenting as driving through the Baltimore Tunnel on your way to New York City. Before you get enter the tunnel, you're listening to music, you're singing, you have the windows rolled down...Then you get in the tunnel and suddenly you become very tense and focused. You have to drive. No radio. No chatter. You are just concentrating on getting safely through. And once you get through, then you can go have check out all the fun in New York City.

There is some dumb movie out there starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pheiffer that came out years ago. A line in the movie haunts me. Bruce and Michelle are married, but a few kids later, their marriage is on the rocks. Bruce turns to Michelle and says, "What happened to that fun girl I used to know?"

T and I recently went to dinner at a childless friends' apartment. Not only was it totally clean, it was the most organized space I had ever seen. It was like their apartment was drawn on a piece of white paper with a gray pencil, using right angles only. I mean, even if you don't have kids, where are your months old stashes of New Yorkers that you haven't read but can bring your self to throw away? Where are your nostalgic high school sweatshirts that have more rips and more memories than your college sweatshirts right next to them that you can't possibly throw out lest you forget that one frat party that one time where you stood on the radiator and danced with P to, what was that song...?

When we returned to our own place that night strewn with colorful stuffed animals and toys that play slightly out of tune songs that get in your head for weeks, I felt a little defeated.

Whoever said women can have it all must have been a man.

Bygones.

I had a lovely lunch today with G and a couple of our friends at a very cool neighborhood spot full of very good looking people working on their macs and ordering second and third lattes. (Wow! No recession here!) G has the energy of someone high on cocaine, so I spent most of the time running after her, maneuvering around messenger bags and faded couches. But the day was lovely. My G is charming and happy and loving and so full of life. She is so worth all the crazy that she has made of my life.

I don't need to see New York City anytime soon.

Sometimes I Throw Things

2010-09-07T05:48:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, my Mother, on occasion, would say through clenched teeth, "I quit motherhood!" I always picture her saying it over a basket of dirty laundry in the basement. It never sacred me. I knew it didn't mean anything, really. But now as a mama, I know that that was my Mom's way of voicing frustration with her job.

There is a little dent in the wall of G's bedroom, right behind the door knob. I don't remember the particulars now, but at some point, out of frustration, I threw the door open so wildly that I made that dent. The chipping paint stands as a symbol of a crazy moment that I prefer to dismiss with a laugh.

I have been known to throw things: cell phones, books, and most recently, I threw a raw egg against the side of the dining room wall, out of frustration.

Such actions worry my dear, stable and calm husband, concerned for my sanity. But from conversation with other mamas, I do think there is an element of crazy that comes with the territory. A mama from work confessed to throwing a glass of red wine against the wall. A friend admitted to not being able to deal with her girls after 5 in the afternoon. Tina Fey's character in "Date Night" concedes that she would like to trade her daughter for a life time of wine.

There is nothing like mamahood. Nothing.

I have never had to do anything very trying in my life: lay bricks for a living, escape genocide, survive a mud slide, so I do feel a little weak on the days that I just can't seem to pull it together and be ok with 12 hours dictated by the whims and whines of a toddler, but I do find the job pretty challenging and I wonder at the women who appear to think of motherhood as a bowl full of cherries.

I love my grl intensely. I hate that she won't let me pee in the morning without freaking out. I love that she can sing the melody to the ABCs. I hate when she demands "tunes" and then throws a fit if I play a tune not to her satisfaction. I love that my grl pats me on the back as I hold her, as if to say, "I know you're working hard mama. Thank you." I hate that she whines if I try to wash the dishes and let her play alone.

I will try very hard in the future to stop throwing things, but I know it won't be easy. But then I have to remember, anything worth it isn't really easy: triathlons, a gourmet dinner, a byline...And Mamahood is no different.

Ultimately, of course, it's better than all those things combined, even if I don't always recognize it, and even if it makes me want to throw things once in a while.

No

2010-08-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

I have been told that my inability to tell G "no" will come back to kick me in the butt. But I am just not good at it. I know I should tell her no when she tries to feed herself oatmeal in the morning. I know I should tell her no when she stands on the dining table chair. I know I should tell her no when she cries to be picked up when I am washing dishes. And that's just the beginning: I should tell her no to cookies, Gatorade, eating only the chocolate chips out of my chocolate chip muffin, to climbing the spiral staircase at the beach, to walking down the city street barefoot, to throwing her toys (she has an amazing arm), to dragging her blanket through puddles, to falling asleep on me, to eating crackers off the floor, to drinking water out of a glass, and definitely from demanding escape from her stroller in the supermarket.

I don't.

I have a little part of my brain that is devoted to the word no. It holds all the bad memories of the times I have heard the word spoken to me in the last few decades. It's a space full of disappointing moments with voice teachers, editors and friends, and I would love to be rid of it, but I just can't seem to drop it, and I find myself retreating to that space when I feel lame or defeated.

G has no such space. To her, and to her parents, her life is only about yes, what she can do. There is no can't. She doesn't understand that word. Her life is this blank sheet of paper on which she can write anything she wants. It's almost overwhelming as a parent. It's up to us to show her everything out there!

I know that no matter how smart G is, how coordinated she is, how outspoken she is and how smiley she is, she will hear the word "no" someday. She may even have a small space in her head devoted to it, although I hope not. But for my part, I have decided to save that word for her and use it sparingly. She will hear it soon enough someday, from strangers, from friends, from bosses. Until then, why not let her see only what is possible.

A Cookie

2010-06-21T19:09:00.000-07:00

I just read a mama blog in which she referred to the birth of her kid as "magical," and the first two weeks of her kid's life as "the best time."

Seriously?

This was not my experience. To me, birth is an explosion of liquids. And the first weeks after giving birth are purely survival.

I just got G to bed. It is 10 p.m. She was up at 6:30 a.m. Somebody, get me a cookie, fast.

"I just wish other mamas would have warned us how hard it would be," my mama neighbor said to me. This is a funny comment now that I am writing it, but my friend was totally serious. She is six months pregnant and was sitting with her two year old, talking about how she and her husband were figuring out how they were going to handle their lives with two kids, two careers, and a bazillion chores.

I didn't ask her if she would have done things differently had she known what mamahood entailed.

I love the real mamas who live in my building, all weighing careers with kids, and their own lives with their families' lives. And at the same time trying to maintain presentable bathrooms, and relationships with the ones who got them into this mess in the first place: their husbands.

The instinct to have kids must run really deep. Why do people do it over and over and over again throughout the ages? It's hard! And gross! And it totally screws up your schedule!

Is it for love? That kind of voracious, grind your teeth and hold your breath love that feels at times more like pain than love? Is it for hope? Belief in the future? Belief in mankind? What is it that compels us to keep breeding?

I would expound further, but it's midnight and I have to get up in six hours to my Moody Morning G.

Really, I deserve that cookie.

Departments

2010-06-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

A friend and I were talking about the Gore breakup recently. She was convinced that he had another woman. I said I thought it would be more fun if she had another man. "Mothers don't have time for affairs," my friend told me.

Growing up, I heard the phrase, "That's not my department," a lot. It was my parents' way of delegating tasks to each other. When the plumber needed to be called for a leaky faucet, my Dad would say, "That's not my department." When the plumber needed to be paid after his services, my Mom would say, "That's not my department."
My Mom's department was the bigger one, if way less lucrative, but the system 40 some years later has seemed to work.

In October of 2005, I won the Powerball Jackpot when I married the sweet TL. There are myriad reasons for his lovelines, not least of which (when you have a one year old) is that he will do whatever I ask him. So one day I asked him to clean the bathroom. Okay, fine, he said, and proceeded to prop up his computer on the sink right there next to the toothpaste and soap, type in www.mlb.com and watch the Red Sox game while "cleaning" the bathroom. What is that phrase? If you want something done right, do it yourself?

It's a complaint of every mama I know: Life's daily tasks often seem to fall to the mama and there is nothing 50-50 about it. It doesn't matter if the mama works full-time as a lawyer, part time as a teacher or stays home with the kids and runs them from school to play dates to dance recitals to guitar lessons, mamas just do more.

"You girls have it so good," my neighbor's mother told her. And we do. The dads of today do a lot. TL cooks dinner, baths G and puts her to sleep after working all day. I think my own Dad, in watching his kids become parents appreciates now what my Mom did all those years during the day by herself. But my Mom thinks it's almost harder today. The roles are not so easily defined and so the tasks not obviously the mama's or the dad's. How do you know which department you are supposed to be running anyway?

I guess you just figure it out as you go along, hopefully. In the meantime, I think, (sigh) the bathroom is mine.

To Be Present

2010-05-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

My grl's eyes are very dark. They are the color of the raisins that she ate (and then spit out) tonight. I love them. They look rounder than most eyes too; like the way a little kid would draw two eyes on a stick figure. There is a cheesy one year old boy out there who will someday say something to G like, "I could lose myself in your eyes." Ick. But then, I can understand that he might.

G looks at everything. She can spot a small piece of green trash, the size of a dime on an otherwise clean playground, from across the park. She will go to it, pick it up and look at it. Then of course she puts it in her mouth, but before she does, she gives the piece of wrapper her undivided attention. She really sees it. I suppose when absolutely everything you see is something new, that's what you do. She does this with books, flowers, that fuzzy that was stuck to her fingers the other day, dogs on the street, city birds out our window, strangers, mama, everything. She looks so intently, she seems to see something that I don't. It's sort of like that guy in American Beauty looking at the plastic bag floating in the wind.

It's amazing walking down the street how oblivious people seem to be of the world. So many people are plugged into various devices, they are missing so much, I think.

G misses nothing.

I have been trying really hard to be present these days, and see and look the way that G does, and value whatever it is that is right in front of me, and whatever time is happening right now. It's sort of hard to do, and today as I was trying to "be present," I think I ended up totally just zoning out.

I watched T's middle school baseball team play a game of wiffle ball recently. They were so fun to watch. They didn't seem to care about anything but right then and there, laughing as they slid around the gym floor running into each other.

When do kids loose that ability to be present? And why?

It's amazing how wise kids are, and how little credit we give them.

"Fake It Until You Make It."

2010-04-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler was once asked about how he got to be a famous rock star. His response: "Fake it until you make it."

I can not fake it. And I am increasingly concluding that this is a detriment to any forward movement in my "career." The girl at work who wears black boots that make a sound as she walks by, she is faking it until she makes it, and doing it really well, I think. (But just what is that sound her boots are making anyway? Are there chains wrapped around her ankles?)

Or the blond chick at work who seems to be afraid that my low-chick-on-the-totem-pole cooties will jump onto her. She won't even look at me. She is also faking it until she makes it, and she too is doing a good job.

I may be too honest. Most people don't admit their flaws or their knowledge gaps. They laugh along, or walk away, or bs until they figure it out. I have never been able to do this. I don't know why. I'm not totally against faking it. It just seems like a lot of work and energy and it would put me in a position to be called out at anytime. That sounds uncomfortable.

But where this honesty seems to be working is in mamahood. G is so real and uninhibited and cool. She doesn't play weird games and therefore doesn't expect weird games from her mama. It's all very simple: Mama hugs her and speaks to her softly, therefore mama loves her. Mama tells her "no" to sicking her finger into the outlet, therefore, she is totally curious about what that will do. Mama won't eat chocolate around her unless mama is planning on giving her some. Mama really wants to let her climb on the dining room table because she is so impressed with her, but realizes this may be setting a bad precedent.

G expects everything and everyone around her to be as simple and real as she is. If G is sad, she cries. If G is happy, she smiles. If G is frustrated that the blanket she is standing on won't move, she hisses through her clenched teeth and then cries out. She is out there with her feelings and thoughts. What you see if what you get. She knows no other way.

If only it could stay that way.

When is it that G will realize that people are more complex than they may appear? That they may have ulterior motives or deep scars or hidden flaws? When will G conclude that many people are faking it until they make it?

It worked for Steven Tyler, but I'm hoping that faking it is not the only way to make it. There are people who succeed by putting themselves out there honestly to be judged by who they truly are, and not by who they are trying to be.

That's what I hope anyway. But in any case, as a mama, I like that I am not a faker. G will never wonder how her mama really feels about her, or who her mama really is. Hopefully this will add a little simplicity and calm and stability to her life in a world that will at times feel complicated and confusing. Other people around her may not be able to give her that. But her mama always will.

Compassionate Competitiveness

2010-04-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

There's a girl at work who carries a bag that reads, "I don't like people." I smile at her when I see her in the hall, as I do to everyone at work, with the thought that maybe someday, someone might swing the bat for me. But my smiles to this chick are consistently met with glares: big, mean, head down, lips pursed, intentional glares. It's as if she is sucking in the light around her and contaminating it with her mean vibe. The girl is good at glaring. Her bag speaks the truth.

This weekend, G met her first Not-So-Nice Toddler. My sweet nephew turned two and had a birthday party that included about 15 little peeps all running around, in and out of the house, in and out of their mamas' arms and in and out of various moods. G was happy to be somewhere different with a lot of action, but, she preferred the sidelines. She watched and took it all in.

The first time the little chick shoved G down, I was standing right there. I didn't want to just scoop her up and take her away, I sort of wanted to try to teach her something, something about being tough, or something about standing her ground or something about people. "Get back up, my grl," I told her. And the chick shoved her down again.

This little girl's mom was very nice, and as she steered her kid away and I boxed G out, she mentioned that she wished she had a little bit of whatever fire it is that her kid has. That, she said, could help her in her business world. I could use a little of it too, really. The smiles only go so far.

G was left with a bruise on her left cheek. G's dad was mad. My mama friend this morning was appalled. I'd like to think the G learned something, maybe not about being tough, (by the end of the night, G resorted to tears after a few too many shoves) or standing her ground, (G couldn't. The other chick was older and taller) or even people (I am sure G has forgotten the other chick) but, maybe something about life or birthday parties or blond chicks. Who knows?

From my end, I am now wondering about how I should teach my lady to handle aggression. Turn the other cheek? Shove back? Walk away? No option seems appealing to me. I don't want G to get into an all out brawl, but I also don't want her to neglect to stand up for herself. She'll need a bit of an edge, at times, to get where she wants to go. But then again, I wouldn't want her to shove everyone down in her way either. Can you teach compassionate competitiveness?

Here is yet another another lesson that I am not sure I understand myself.

G's Shoes

2010-04-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

We've had a hard time with shoes for G. She started walking around nine months, before we had time to google "baby shoe sizes." For a while we pretended that it was enough that she wore those little socks that look like shoes. But then she outgrew those. So we bought her a couple pairs of shoes, but they were too small. Then we bought her tie shoes that we thought were cute, until we tried to get them on the grl. Finally, we bought a pair of shoes that seemed to work, and then we promptly lost them.

T and I love to talk about G, and who she is, under that roly poly belly and those dark chocolate colored eyes. We wonder if you can know who a one year old will be.

G's grandma gave her a rocking lion for Christmas. G likes to stand on it. She holds on to the handle bars with both hands and her butt in the air, looking like one of the sequenced ladies in the circus riding an elephant. I don't think she can balance herself with no hands on the wobbling lion, but I know that is what she is planning on doing next. She lifts her head and smiles at me as she swings her behind to rock the lion. The grl likes a challenge.

G is good with challenges. But she is bad with mornings. T and I awake every morning to a full on 10 on the G Scream Scale. She goes for it with no warm up or anything. No, "Hello in there. I am awake and therefore you must be too!" It's just immediately, "WHY AREN'T YOU IN HERE!!!!!!! I AM AWAKE!!" It's in the morning that I find myself wondering about designer babies and if there is a way to turn on the gene that dictates "morning person." It's also the time of day that T will most likely say something like, "Man, what guy will marry her if she is like this in the mornings?" (I don't remind him, "Probably a nice guy like you.")

I already have these ideas about who G is: She is sporty. She is curious. She is awkward looking in most dresses. I can't help but make such judgments. But I am trying hard to make sure I leave G and who she is, and wants to be, open. I don't want to already have expectations of her. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow she'll decide to be a morning person and she'll have a smile for me. And then maybe by Friday, she'll decide that standing on the lion is scary.

We have shoes for G now. They are sandals, Velcro and unrestricted. They seemed to work...for a while anyway. But the other day, G loosened her foot so that her toes were free, but her heel remained strapped. She got annoyed and wanted the shoes off. These shoes apparently don't quite fit either.

That's alright. We'll go find some other shoes for G to try. She may have to go through a number of shoes before she finds a pair that fits. As long as eventually she is comfortable in whatever shoes she is wearing, that's what will really matter to me.

Just A Mom

2010-03-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I threw my Mom a birthday party. It was no big deal: burgers, Mexican dip, a pretty cake, a cheese ball. But with a one year old, everything is about 100 times harder than it should be: In Target, as I was buying the paper products, G spilled mini-Cadbury eggs everywhere. At home, while I was ordering the cake, G (impressively) picked up my hot coffee and treated herself to a taste, which then went everywhere, and quickly became no treat at all, for anyone. In front of my computer as I was trying to send the invites, G got herself stuck behind the couch. Even better, in trying to get herself unstuck, she got stuck in the sticky "child safe" mouse trap behind the couch.

A one year old ups the difficulty rating of any task no matter how small. But I am a mama and even though no one put any warning labels on the cute packaging, I understand that this is just the way it goes now. If I want to run, work, read the paper, clean the bathroom, shop for groceries, or even just go to the bathroom, I have to work my schedule, as well as my multi-tasking skills.

So, my cousin walks in the door to my Mom's birthday party.
He says to my Dad: "Wow, you look great!"
He says to my brother: "Wow, obviously you are keeping fit out there in California!"
He says to my other brother: "Are you tanning up there in New York? You look so young!"
He says to me: "Hi!"
So I say to him: "Hey! What about me? Don't I look good too?"
His response? "Oh, you're just a mom."

Ah moms. We do. We go. We make it happen. But at the end of the day all we are are moms. Just moms. Even now with doctor moms, running moms, corporate fancy-pants moms, thong-wearing moms. It doesn't matter. A mom is still "just a mom."

At least we have progressed beyond the mom jeans.

It's annoying, society's? media's? everyone's? idea of a mom. This despite my own feelings of strength as a mom. (Also my own feelings of emotional disarray at times, but that's for another blog.)

When G was first born, we would go to Safeway daily, just to get out and feel like we had done something. Everyday in those first months of mamahood, the Safeway loudspeaker would blare a commercial that went something like this: "Want something fresh and tasty to jump start your day? Pears are a good energy boost. They are great for moms and athletes alike."

In my urban hood, the mamas I meet are cool, smart, friendly and not restricted by their identities as moms. They are also really into their kids and totally focused on them while still maintaining their own personalities and interests. Maybe the reason for all the dated and dumb perceptions of moms out there is because mamas today are redefining mamahood, making it mean something broader and therefore something harder for people (like my cousin) to fully understand.

My grl and I like to challenge other runners we come upon on our afternoon runs. If boys hate to be passed by a grl, they REALLY hate to be passed by a mom. When they see that this is a possibility, they will either turn left as we go straight, or they will suddenly feel the need to tie their shoes. This is hugely annoying to us and we feel that these boys have not given us our due. The next time this happens, though, maybe I'll try to make him feel better and scream out to him as he crosses the street away from us:

"Yo! Don't worry about it, man! I'm Just A Mom!"

Mama Brain

2010-02-24T07:09:00.001-08:00

I lose things all the time these days: my id, my green hat, my keys, my right, silver old high heel that I needed desperately for a wedding recently.

The other day, I packed running shoes in my bag before we headed to my Mom and Dad's, so I could run that afternoon. As I did so, I thought, "Man! Why won't these fit in my bag today?" I discovered later, upon dressing for my run, that I had packed my husband's size 11 running shoes, instead of mine.

Such flakiness is referred to as "Mama Brain." It's a fuzzy head. It's an absent look. It's a feeling that you have just forgotten to do something but you can't quite remember what it was.

At basketball games, no matter how long I have been guarding the same girl, I will forget which one I was guarding after a turn over. "The girl in the red shirt? The one in the blue shirt? Oh, I bet it was the one who JUST SCORED!"

I want to wear shirt as a disclaimer that says something like, "I am a mama! Please forgive me if I am a total idiot! I am trying to keep another, very small, very weird and very loud human alive."

On many a run with G, I get such bad Mama Brain that as I am running, with G, right there in front of me, I stop! in my tracks because I think I have forgotten G somewhere. "Oh shit!" I panic for a second before I remember that I am pushing the grl.

I have lost my brain, but at least I haven't lost G yet.

It seems that I used to have time to think about BIG STUFF, like life and love and the world and good people and bad people, and people I liked, and people I didn't, people's whose clothes I thought were cool, people who never looked at me no matter how many times I passed them in the hall at work. Now, I think that I am not thinking most of the time. OR, maybe I am thinking SO much that I don't even realize that I am thinking, and therefore coming across like I am not thinking.

There, that was just thinking.

The bottom line is that G takes up so much of my brain that there is very little of it left for things that don't really matter.

There's a guy at work whose whole life is about going out to the cool new bar or the fancy new lounge. I can't help but chuckle/judge a bit. He says things like, "For every foot of snow that falls, they are going to be serving $2 off all rail drinks!!!"

Clearly, he and I are not in the same place.

Your life changes with a kid, so it only makes sense that your head would too. You brains cells are in overload trying to grasp the Crazy Town that is your life. You have to pare it all down to the stuff that really matters: Poop over pettiness, Pack n Plays over packed bars, day-to-day over daydreams, smiles over sleep, friends and family over foes.

It's amazing what you can learn from a one year old. (Silent shout out to the sleeping G!) I think (!) that I'll embrace my Mama Brain from now on.

Da-Da

2010-02-16T07:45:00.000-08:00

As a thank you to her mama for the very cheap rental of her body, the sucking of every once of her calories, and the miles and miles of walks around the city so she could sleep, the G has learned, "da-da."
This morning I looked at her and said, "mama" and she responded, "da-da."
"Mama," I said.
"Da-da," she demanded.
This went on and on until she said, "da-da" one last time and then smiled at me.
The grl is playin' me.

When my Dad turned 65, we all threw him a big party. My brother wrote him a song. I wrote him a poem. There were decorations and food and surprise guests. When my Mom turned 65, there was...I can't even remember. I am hoping that we called.

I've heard my mom talk about the different relationship a mom has with her kid as opposed to what a dad has with his kid. Having a little perspective these days, I am starting to understand what she was talking about.

Why are moms and dads so different? Moms are so constant that they are easy to forget? Moms know you better than dads? Dads, you never want to disappoint, and moms, you disappoint all the time?

I broke my leg when I was in the third grade skiing down a mountain in Colorado. I hit a tree. It was bad and dramatic, and the ski patrol came and bundled me up in the sled. My Mother, so many years later, still can't talk about it. I remember as I was sitting in the snow looking at my leg turned out at a very unnatural angle, I kept screaming over and over, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" My Dad knelt down next to me and took off his red gloves to reveal his big, strong, weathered hands. (I think I remember this because it always surprised me when he took off his gloves in the snow. I thought it was too cold.)

In the weeks that followed though, it was my Mom who took me to the doctor, picked me up at school, talked to Mrs. Clark about missed work, invited my best friend over, and made me gourmet picnics in the backyard with my big old cast hanging off the blanket.

Maybe it's ok that moms have a different relationship with their kids than dads. (And it's ok that the G says da-da and not mama.) I know if given the choice, my Mom would still be a mom over a dad. She would take her kids' (at times) biting words and disrespect. She knows us best, I think she would say, and therefore she has seen some of the best too.

I picked up G to put her down for her nap this morning, cradled her and started singing. She laid still in my arms- a rarity- and just looked at me with those big, brown eyes, listening. When I finished the song, she smiled. I laid her in her crib, put the blanket over her and she smiled again.

Jenny Sanford's mom

2010-02-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

I think my girl is beautiful. I tell her as much, dozens of times a day. I sing her songs about how sweet and smart she is, or just entire songs made up of two words, over and over again: "Gilly, Gilly, Gilly Girl."

My very physical lady loves to climb on the table, the chairs, the kitchen counter, me. She can wiggle her way off the bed (probably 2-3 feet high) and land on her two feet. I watch her do it and then applaud.

On the playground a couple weeks ago G approached some moms and kids and said clearly, "Gilly." She hasn't said it since then, so maybe it was a total fluke, but I said to the moms that day, "Wow, what does that mean if her first word is her own name!"

I've been thinking a lot about Jenny Sanford's mom these days. (Jenny's the wife of the senator who had the affair with the Argentinian chick.) How did Jenny's mom raise her daughter to think that the way her husband treated her was ok? Jenny was magna cum laude from Georgetown, classy, pretty, from a prominent family, why would she hang with a guy that mistreated her from the beginning? How could Jenny have such low self-esteem?

Can you trace a girl's confidence to her mama?

Yikes, that's a bit of pressure.

It's a tough world out there for chicks. There are all these rules: Be determined, but not bitchy. Be pretty, but not too sexy. Be sporty, but stay feminine. Be curious, but remain pure.

I guess it's a lot to try to teach your daughter, especially if you don't really understand the rules yourself. And then, the rules are always changing, with generations, with technology, with equality. It's all just too hard to figure out. Maybe I'll just tell her to make up her own rules.

I just thought of a new tune to sing G that maybe she'll like. I think, though, I'll keep the lyrics the same.

For DC Mamas looking for something to do

2010-02-03T07:32:00.000-08:00

Hey DC Mamas!

G and I checked out Spark Lab at the newly renovated American History Museum yesterday at 14th and Constitution Ave. (The lab is open 10-4 everyday. Enter at Constitution Ave and go right to the West wing.) It was a very cool alternative to our standard library visit. It's good for all ages kids. They conduct experiments with the older ones, but score for G! they have a little part with blocks and puzzles for kids under 5. G dug. Met some cool peeps too. And then we just walked around the huge lobby area where G shed all her footwear. The woman does not like to feel restricted!

Museums in the wintertime rock! No one is around; except for the English woman who asked me where the Gap was because I "Look like someone who would know where the Gap is." I am still trying to figure out if that is a good thing.

Year One

2010-01-29T10:05:00.000-08:00

I tell friends who are big and pregnant for the first time, things like, "You're gonna be great!" and "It's awesome!"

What I really think is, "Oh shit, I do not envy you."

A year ago last week, I went into labor with the G. T and I walked into the hospital calm, smiling and holding hands. We walked out three days later exhausted, clueless and totally annoyed that we could not figure out how the damn straps on the car seat worked. (My brother actually had to drive to the hospital to help us.)

G floored us.

The lady popped onto the planet all crinkly and red and weird looking. I was embarrassed of her nose. There was something weird about it and I wondered if everyone else thought the same. T left my side immediately to be with her and I felt replaced. I wasn't all aglow and in love with her. I was hormonal and trying desperately to figure out this weird, new planet on which I had suddenly found myself. And G was literally sucking the life out of me: The hungry girl was nursing every two hours! grappling for my boob like some sort of blind rodent. I would look out the window into the alley at midnight, at 2 am, 4 am, 6 am...and I'd wonder how the heck I was gonna do this.

Our favorite survival story comes at the end of a G screaming day-into-night marathon. We were so fed up and exhausted and at our wits' end that we threw on some jeans, threw G in the stroller and walked to the bar for a much needed beer. G stopped crying. And we stopped being totally annoyed. T's advice to anyone now with a colic baby is simply, "Keep a six pack in the frig."

"Why do people do this?" We'd say to each other. "And on purpose! And more than once!"

G turned one this weekend. The year has felt like both the fastest and the slowest year of my life. She has opened up my heart. She has demanded the best of me. She has seen the worst of me. She has made me a better person. She has exhausted me and challenged me. It's been tough, but I sort of wouldn't want it any other way. After all, anything truly worth doing requires real effort, determination and strength. I am proud of our battle scars.

Today G sleeps a bit more. We understand the workings of a car seat. And T and I both think our smart, strong, highly vocal lady is the coolest thing on the planet. Even better, (and thankfully!) we're pretty sure she likes us too.

Happy one year my crazy lady!

Cookies for Breakfast

2010-01-13T09:23:00.000-08:00

We went to our second music class the other day. G likes the percussion instruments, but she seems sort of freaked out by all the weird high pitched "Weeeeeeeee!" and "Boink!" sounds the teacher makes. It is pretty strange the way adults behave with kids, so free and uninhibited in ways that they never would be in real life. I wonder when it is we start teaching kids the opposite, when we teach them control! and discipline! and inhibition! No wonder life is so confusing. We learn one thing and then we learn the exact opposite.

I dunno what sort of disciplinarian I will be, and I wonder if I should have that figured out at this point. I did give G cookies for breakfast this morning and I know that can't be good. (There is a mama-police angel that sits on my right shoulder that quietly scolds me for such things.) But it did get G to stop crying and the cookies did have oatmeal in them. And they were homemade! No preservatives!

Waiting in the airport this weekend, G and I watched as one mother over and over again told her kid to stop sitting on the floor. G and I were both sitting on the floor, eating M&Ms. I am sure that mom and I were totally judging each other.

G and I have had many battles at this point in our relationship; battles of sleep, battles of moods, but yesterday we may have had our first Mom-Daughter battle. I tried to get her to understand, "no" to biting me. I pulled her away and stood her on the floor and shook my head, firmly reciting, "no, no, no." She turned her back to me, walked to the door, looked over her shoulder with those deep, dark eyes and shook her head. The woman, I am quite certain, was mocking me.

There is always so much discussion and strong opinions about who is harder to raise: girls or boys. Many women seem to favor sons over daughters, including my chick cousins. This has always disturbed me a bit since 1. I am a girl and 2. not liking girls just because they are girls seems totally backwards to me. It's sort of like not rooting for your own team. My own Mom, I think, has always valued her strong friendships with women, so it wasn't until later that I realized how hard women can be on other women. Some women look at me and seem to totally hate me when I am running down the street with G, for no reason, other than, I guess, cause I am a fit chick.

I think the G has already learned how far a smile will get her. It's almost a game with her to try to get strangers to look at her. She has no concept of who she is smiling at on the street: black, white, short, tall, rich, poor, man, woman. She is not competing with anyone or judging anyone. She has no concept of any of that. All she wants is a smile back.

However I discipline G in the future (or whatever I let her eat for breakfast) I hope that I can keep that kind of openness to other people, (and to other girls) alive in her. The world could learn a lot from ma G.

Scream Town

2010-01-06T06:57:00.001-08:00

If I thought at this point I would be a totally together mama, I also thought at this point G would be a totally together kid. Another day, another scream-fest.

G and I have yet to master nap-time. It's like this elusive plane that I know many kids go to and G gets there every now and then, but she doesn't stay for too long and she'll never get there without first a nice, long visit to Scream Town. That's where we are right now: In Scream Town. It's loud. It's wet with tears, fraught with boogers, and chuck-full of some good mama guilt.

I have written about the loss of innocence, the loss of time, the loss of a your old life, but how about the loss of sleep? T and I used to scoff at parents who noted their exhaustion. "Ok, right, we'll be tired. We get it," we would say.

A couple nights ago, G screamed on and off again from 2 am-6 am. Sounds like an exaggeration, right? It should be. It sounds crazy. Well, it was. Recalling the number of eff bombs I dropped in those wee hours, I realize that G's screaming is no exaggeration. It was like some sort of circuit training or track workout. G would scream for about 20 minutes, then go to sleep, then wake up, remember that she was pissed and then scream again. 20 on. 20 off. This went on all morning. It was incredible and impressive. And I couldn't say eff enough.

I wonder if the mom-police would get on me for G's screaming. (Although, from my experience with the mom-police, it seems as if the women on the force are not moms at all, really. I will admit, however, that taking G running in the rain was a bad call and the non-mom-police should have glared at me for that one. Lesson # 2356 learned.)

I digress. We are here in Scream Town again today. I feel my blood pressure ascending.

Shoot. My grl can scream. Really, there is nothing like it. T records it and then makes his high school class listen to it as a way to promote safe sex. We call her full blown, there is a poltergeist in my room scream, a 10. Anything below that is really fine, mostly because we know how bad a 10 is.

G started her lung work outs at just a couple days old. "Well, at least she will tire herself out so she'll sleep tonight," we would say. Ah, what naive parents we were. Lady G has the stamina of Barack Obama on the campaign trail. She can just keep going and going and going.

Which is why here I am still in Scream Town. And here again, wondering about my momhood ability. Yesterday while G screamed (at only about a 6 on the scream scale) as I tried to get her bundled up and out the door for a walk, I looked at her and said, "G, I am not sure I am cut out for this mom thing." But then, I finally got her out the door and moving down the street and she chilled out. She took a nap. I got a run in. And G was ma beautiful lady.

I just went in to G's room, picked her up, rocked her to sleep and successfully put her in her crib. We have made it again, at least for the time being, out of Scream Town.

And I just spoke too soon. eff.

The Making of a Mom: Part I

2009-12-28T06:15:00.000-08:00

If the G is my Christmas present, her cold, flu and ear ache are three lumps of coal. Why didn't I know that my kid would be a miserable sick kid who would not be knocked out by doses of children's Tylenol and Motrin? Her first Christmas and it was was filled with screaming (her), cursing (her parents) and a trip to the ER for meds.

I think I figured at this point that I would know a few things about being a mom. I would have the mamma-conviction that I have come to expect in my own Mother who always knows everything, and even if she doesn't, she makes it sound like she does, and I buy it.

Our fancy and not inexpensive ear thermometer, we have come to learn, can be two degrees off. So when the G's temp was saying 102, it was probably more like 104. Yikes.

I never really thought much about being a mom until I became one, but I definitely thought the whole thing would be different, that I would feel different. At times, I can forget that I am a mom altogether. I still feel like me, like I have always felt, at 10, at 16, at 23. I look around at other moms on the playground, in the grocery store, on their way to work, and they seem to know things that I don't: the best preschools, the best play groups, the most expensive gymborees, that items called, "Buggie Wipes" exist. They have a confidence about them that I don't, a conviction that I don't.

On the way home from the ER, T and I stopped at the drug store. We bought two cheap rectal thermometers. G screamed that night again, even though we were convinced that she wouldn't. There was more cursing and more failed attempts to sooth the old gal. I did, however, throw out the ear thermometer. Some moms may be born, but this one anyway, will definitely be made.

Bricks

2009-12-22T19:56:00.000-08:00

My Mother had a strategy designed to keep me from growing older. She would hold my hand in hers, pat it, inhale sharply through her teeth and say, "I'm gonna put a brick on your head." I didn't think much of it at the time, except to imagine my Mom going out to the side of the house where my brother and his best friend played and coming back with a brick in her hand to place on my head. I had no idea what she was talking about.

Of course now I do.

It pains T and me to watch old videos of G. We love to see her as she was, tiny and alien-like, but we hate it too. It reminds us that G just keeps growing, moving on, moving away from us. We are living days that we can never live again with her. That sounds weird. And sort of dumb. Aren't we all living days we will never live again? Yet, G is a constant reminder of how fast life is going, how fleeting moments are and how we will never get any of them back. It's sort of painful. Everything means so much more with G around. Time means so much more with G around. Life means so much more with G around. Sucking the marrow seems all too important with G around.

A friend of mine recently pointed out that kids are painful, not because they may disappoint you or dislike you at times, but because as a parent, your job is to devote your life to someone who will in the end if you did it right, want to leave you.

When I came home tonight, G gave me a big smile and opened her arms out for me to take her.
I think I'll check the side yard for some good, clean, bricks.

The Season of Gifts

2009-12-16T12:48:00.001-08:00

Tis the season of gifts. This year and for every year after, G is my gift. I am trying to really revel in the G and live in the moment. I watch her smile when I play with her. I watch her eyes when she looks up at me. I try to really feel her head against mine and really hear her breathing when she sleeps.

The human experience is so fleeting and SO hard to hold on to, no matter how hard we try. Seconds after G leans her body into my legs as we both stand in the kitchen, the instant is gone and I easily forget it happened. Moments after G laughs as I tickle her feet, the air is filled with silence.

Maybe this is why we all always want things for Christmas, things that we can hold onto in our hands, and touch and smell and play with all day long. Material things that go under the Christmas tree - tangibles that we can take with us from moment to moment, and Christmas party to Christmas party.

Heaven must be a place where things like laughter and smiles come in boxes. Or maybe holding onto laughter and smiles is the sixth sense we gain in the next lifetime. Or maybe we just haven't evolved yet to the point where we can hold onto the things that really matter, like hugs and kisses.

In any case, this year, I will continue to try (and fail) to hold onto every tick of the clock with my gift. She is definitely the best gift of all.

2009-12-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

The G has started to dance. She can't talk. She can't run. But the girl has moves. Mostly her moves are head- centric, sort of Stevie Wonder-like. Her head goes left. Her head goes right. She doesn't do it for too long, probably because moving her head too much can throw her off balance. But it's THE best when she does it. Last night, Sting got her groove. This morning it was Aimee Mann. She isn't too picky about who is it is at this point. When she hears the music, she just has to move.

The T and I have music on all the time, but we aren't much of a dancing couple- especially the Stevie Wonder kind of moving. So we were wondering, how does G who doesn't know English, know dancing?

There's this heady book on my night stand that I attempted to read a few months ago on babies. It's too thick for me, heavy on psychology and I dunno, big words. But the gist of it is that babies know far more than we give them credit for. And if you think about it, they have to know more than we do, what with all they have to figure out in a short time. (When was the last time we learned a language in two years?) I wonder though what is innate in them? What are they born knowing already? Is love innate? Is music innate? Is dancing innate?

How cool to think that we were all born with knowledge of such beautiful things.

2009-12-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

For all her ability to scream and make herself known, G is an extremely affectionate lady. She crawls up on my lap. She looks for me around the corner. She sits on the floor to play with her back leaning against my leg.

I have been reading the biography "Strength in What Remains" by Tracy Kidder. I almost stopped a few chapters ago. It's about how one man survived the genocide in Burundi. (I did not know this before, but I guess the genocide in Rowanda was precipitated by killings in its neighbor country Burundi.) It was tough reading for a while and I almost put it down. Being a mom has given me a low tolerance for anything sad or scary. I just wanted to get to the happy ending where the man is a doctor living in the US.

It's awful and amazing how humans can mistreat fellow humans. I started thinking about G and praying that she would never realize this. Of course, she will someday. But right now, she must think the world is pretty great and pretty beautiful. Her world is all love and only love. She doesn't even know what hate is, let alone that it exists. No one has even pushed her down on the playground yet. How great that the world is so pure to her! For all she knows, she's still in Heaven.

I guess this is why some parents try to shelter their kids. It's a gift, really, to give them the illusion of a perfect world. Why not keep that going as long as possible? She will have enough reality. She will be an adult someday and see it for herself. In the meantime, why not let her live in her all-love world, full of hugs, kisses and smiles, full tummies and fun times in the pool?

I hate knowing that someday she will realize it's not all love out there.

2009-11-26T10:03:00.000-08:00

Things I am thankful for:

TLove, G, my mom, my dad, C, S, C, c, M, the Gs, the Mcs, the Ls, my old friends, my newer friends, libraries, public parks, extra bold coffee, that God made it so that you don't have a cycle while you're breastfeeding, dark chocolate, running shoes, orthodics, strong legs, strong arms, T's legs, dark and stormies on the beach with my Mom, kleenex, fresh air, city living, God (can you be thankful for God?), opportunity, good books, new books, fun childrens books, newspapers, good writing, smiles from strangers, kind words from strangers, good people, strangers or not, MUSIC! the future, the past, good neighbors, good vibes, BEER! healthy babies, heathly everyone, different opinions, faith, cheese balls, renewed friendships, old cowboy boots, a mouse in the trap, the color green, the seasons, Puma, peanut butter...

I have a lot to be thankful for.

2009-11-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

G: Thanks so much Mom for that great walk today and for pointing out all the leaves and the colors. And thanks for taking me to that class even though I know you think it's sort of lame. And thanks for taking me to that garden and letting me walk all around. And thanks for introducing me to cheese. That was cool. Hey, and sorry about that gross diaper that got all over your jeans when you changed me in the park. ew. And thanks for always letting me have some of your water. I like drinking water from an adult cup. Thanks also for comforting me last night in the wee hours. Thanks for all this but I think I am now going to totally flip out in my crib- like possesed by the devil type flip out. Cause, that's just what I do.

M: Well G, it wouldn't be a real day with you without at least one major flip out. I am always very impressed with your determination and stamina. You know what you want and won't accept anything less! I think you are very cool, VERY cool. But God help the man who marries you.

2009-10-30T07:32:00.001-07:00

What better time to blog than when your kid is screaming her head off in her crib? She sounds like the devil when she screams. It's impressive. She has been crying all morning, me holding her, me not holding her. If she would allow herself to sleep, she would be so much happier. Instead she wails. The lady will be blessed with a lot of energy someday. I imagine going to the gym or out for a run will be a must do on her long list. Yes, yes, these are the good things to think about right now, instead of wondering what the neighbors must think of your parenting skills. She is a tough girl, in all ways. I totally get how writer and mom Heather Armstrong ended up in the loony bin after having her first child.

2009-10-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

I love my days with G. And I am also pretty scared of them. How can I entertain her, teach her, get her to sleep, get her to relax, get her to play by herself, get her to stop trying to pull my laptop screen back, and keep her alive another day, while also maintaining my own sanity? It's rather intimidating, the responsibility of it all. And if I fail, even if for just a second, and show my frustration with a curse word or a cry for help, I immediately feel bad, like a bad mother. I totally understand why my Mother used to throw up her hands and say "I am quitting motherhood!"

I have started singing the Hail Mary when I start feeling uptight with a squirmy, sleepless G. I figure the V.M. may know a few things. Being the mom to Jesus couldn't have been easy. But then again, "no crying he made," so maybe it wasn't that bad.

My girl is nine months tomorrow. She walks across the room. She pulls herself up. She giggles when her dad runs in and out and in and out of a doorway. She loves her mama. She hates peas.
Today my heart is way bigger than I ever knew it was. Or maybe it grew bigger in the past nine months. It is bursting out of my chest. This/G makes me a better, person, more sympathetic and quicker with a smile to a stranger. I wonder if it keeps growing as she grows? I dunno if I can handle that.

2009-10-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

June was my last post. It's October! Can you even really say you have a blog when you post so infrequently? I am one of the many who start a blog only to have it fade away. And here I have so much important stuff to say! Like:

My kid is so cute.
and
My kid is so smart.

I had a good day with her though. She napped. In her crib. For more than 2 minutes. It was amazing. I had time to rid our bedroom of many, many dust bunnies. The bunnies were breeding all over the place. It was surely hazardous.

Anyway, today at 8 months she napped an hour in her crib and this was totally amazing to me. I clearly am not a Ferberizer. I am fairly certain G would take the Ferberize challenge and poop all over it. We already know she can scream for hours, and hours, and drive us to the drink. So we have pretty much decided at this point just to look for small victories like a nap in the crib and a swept bedroom.

2009-06-09T19:46:00.001-07:00

G was an inconsolable newborn. She cried a lot: at night, in the morning, in the swing, in the rocking chair. There was very little we could do to help her no matter what we tried: a new hold, a new room, a new toy, a new song. Nothing worked. T and I would noticed, however, that there was this spot in the corner of her room where she would look, over my shoulder, behind me, where there was nothing but a blank wall, but when she looked on this spot, she would stop crying and just look at it. Sometimes she would even smile at the spot. T and I decided that that must be God back there, her old buddy from the womb, a familiar presence comforting her in her new alien world.

These days, G doesn't cry nearly as much and for the most part we can console her. She is becoming more and more connected to us and to the earthly things around her, her block toy, her purple blanket. It is those things and us, now that she goes to for comfort.

T and I sit around a lot and just talk about how perfect G is. The word miracle used for a baby really is no stretch. T and I had little to do with her creation. Babies come from somewhere much better and bigger than us. But as she gets older, even just a few months, and she is starting to understand the world, I wonder if she also starts to lose, little by little, that connection to that bigger, better place?

She no longer looks to that spot in the corner of her room for comfort.

2009-06-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

G fell off the counter sitting in what I thought was a totally immovable foam chair. If I hadn't been screaming when I saw it, I would have been impressed with the girl's strength. A trip to the er confirmed that G is fine and that I am officially a crazy, frazzled mother who has no idea what to do with all this love for her kid. After that horrifying experience of watching her fall off the counter far from my reach, I have no idea how I will last the rest of my life with this super sized love that makes me feel as though I may just self-combust.

2009-05-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

I made my husband turn off Gray's Anatomy. I couldn't take the poorly acted story line about a dying kid. I cried. My cousin, another new mom, says she cries at the commercial where the kid is lost in the train station and can't find his mom. It's a "Don't Smoke" ad which she says is killing her. In my three short (or very, very long, depending on how you look at it) months that I have been a mom, my heart has grown to the size of the universe. It's achingly large. It's crippling. It's what I was warned about but had no idea about until now. I now feel what every good mom must.

2009-04-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

I was unfriended by a "friend" on facebook. Pretty low, huh? With all the people friending everyone and their sister and their ex-boyfriends and their aunts' ex-boyfriends, and...you'd think the whole friending thing had lost any real meaning anyway. I feel pretty bad to be unfriended. Was it something I wrote? Once upon a time, in the 90s, we were real friends. It seemed only natural that today we would be facebook friends. What would make her suddenly want to unfriend me? Was she still upset that I got roses from the leading man in the musical senior year and she didn't? Or that I set her up with a horrible prom date that same year. (Totally unintensional, I promise.) What was it so many years later that made her go, "You know. She really poed me when she didn't call me back in 95 when I was really homesick." It's just weird.
And sadly, it bums me out. I am a 33 year-old mother of G, employed, with a clean bathroom and frozen homemade spaghetti sauce in the freezer, yet I can still so easily feel like that nerdy high schooler seeking solace in the library where I could eat my lunch alone without having to face the tables of girls in the lunchroom who were all so much cooler and had so many more friends than I.

2009-03-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Babies are work. They are funny looking, smelly, blob-like and extremely impatient. But they are also pretty magical. It's hard to know why, what with the exhaustion, the thankless giving and the full time job that comes with parenting, but many people really do love babies. Random people smile at me as I stroller G down the street. Homeless men peek under her visor to catch a glimpse. Strangers ask how old she is. Why do people care?

By the end of my pregnancy I was annoyed with people's questions about my womb. "When are you due?" "Do you have names picked out?" And my favorite, "How's it going mama?" But I realized that people love a pregnant woman because of what she represents. No matter what your beliefs, pregnancy is a crazy miracle. A woman is growing another person. And in an attempt to be close to that miracle and the innocence and purity it represents, people try to get close to you.

Now G is is an extension of that miracle. She comes from some place far away and she is connected to something much bigger. So people still want to be close to her.

My husband and I wonder when it is that she will lose her pure goodness. Will we know? Will she know? And is it then that she becomes just another person on the street? Is it then that everyone forgets the miracle that she is?

2009-03-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

My husband wrote that initial entry. He clearly likes me. But his question is a good one, why start a blog? I don't have the answer but feel compelled to join the ranks of bloggers anyway. Although, I am sort of hoping no one reads it- except maybe my Mom and my two brothers - one a liberal leftist Californian who loves to challenge anyone to a good political discussion and the other, a writer often inclined to laugh out loud with no apparent reason- both, I figure, would be good for banter. And my husband, he is a super clever one, although his entries will most likely be more along the lines of praise than anything.

Me? I am a first time mother of a 6 week old. I feel for some reason that calls for a blog- a blog titled something like, "What were we thinking?"

A doctor friend calls childbirth a "medical disaster narrowly averted. The birth canal, he says, is not designed for the birthing process. It is most unnatural, an evolutionary error." He told me this as I sat big and round, awaiting the inevitable.

I am currently holding my very own almost medical disaster. She is loud and pink and inclined to smell funny. If you ask me though, the real potential for disaster comes not at birth but from the first months with the little person. Parenting is just damage control, at least at this point. It's as if, you're suddenly hired to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company. You have heard of the company but you have absolutely no experience in the field, your background being more in the wheat and barley sector. And you have never been asked to take such great responsibility so quickly. Yet now you are supposed to not only keep the company going but you are supposed to make sure it flourishes. This "career" will span the rest of your life and take up most minutes of the day and night. Go.

One friend advised us "embrace the poop." Truer words were never spoken. Who knew that two people could suddenly speak so frequently of poop- it's color, it's frequency, the act of and yes literally embracing the poop. There is really nothing else you can do when at the end of the day you find something mustard color in your fingernail.

As a parent, things like poop-talk start immediately. What does not come immediately, at least for me, is that feeling of wonder at being a mother. Really, that feeling of even feeling like a mother has evaded me. At what point does a mom really become a mom?

Why Would Anyone Start a Blog?

2009-02-18T06:09:00.000-08:00

Tough economic times, a planet in turmoil, the resurgence (at least on paper) of the Yankees - in a world as unsettled and currently traumatic as this, why would anyone want to start a blog? Posting stories, ideas, thoughts, musings and factoids for everyone, or no one, to read? What's the point?

I'm not sure of the point, but I am sure of the motivation. That's been my thing since I was an all-star point guard on my 7th grade basketball team: motivation. I was a motivated basketball player in grade school, a motivated student in high school, a motivated public drinker in college, a motivated professional opera singer in my early 20's, a motivated journalist for the 3rd biggest newspaper in the country in my early 30's, and now I've found that after giving birth, my hubby and I have spawned a highly motivated little girl. So motivated, in fact, that she can stay up for 3 days straight, eating and crying. Incredible. Meantime, here's a pic of our sometimes-insatiable babe: