Birds, Bees, and Bunnies

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During my pregnancy with K, I braced myself for questions from our then three-year-old regarding all things baby, including how she got in there, and how she was going to get out. My training as a counselor has greatly influenced my parenting style in that I try to be open to any topic R brings up for discussion, but also to limit my answers to what is appropriate for his age and development at that time. He seemed to accept our explanations to all of his questions about his baby sister. (Although, when K was in the middle of a crying fit when she was two weeks old, he asked if we could “put her back,” so he might need some clarification on things in the future.)

When we enrolled R in preschool last spring, the preschool teacher had just adopted two rabbits to keep in the classroom. “What a wonderful way for the kids to learn about responsibility and nature,” I naively thought at the time.

In the fall, R came home and proudly announced that the momma bunny was expecting. Delivery day was anxiously anticipated, and R was excited to show us the balls of fluff that resulted.

Then, a few weeks ago (and months after said bunnies were born), out of the blue, R and I had the following conversation:

R:  Mom, how do babies get made?

Me: We’ve talked about this, remember? When a mom and dad love each other, their love makes a baby, and then the baby grows in the mom’s stomach until it’s ready to be born.

R: Oh yeah.

Me (Cautiously): Why did you want to know?

R: Miss C said that we have to get a new house for the dad bunny because the way to get more baby bunnies is to put the dad bunny and the momma bunny in the same house. And we don’t want any more bunnies. We only want this much bunnies. (Holds up eight fingers for emphasis.)

Made sense to me. This conversation seemed to go so well for Miss C that I’m already looking toward the future when the questions get harder and more insistent. Anyone know where I can get some bunnies when he’s about 13?

The Rollercoaster

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When I became a mother, I also became a worrier. The first night we brought R home from the hospital, I insisted that we stay up and take turns watching the baby sleep. My husband, still riding the wave of new-father euphoria smiled indulgently at his crazy, sleep-deprived wife and obliged. Twenty-four hours later, euphoria had faded, replaced by the desperation of a man who hadn’t slept or showered in three days. He reminded me that this was a completely unsustainable practice, much like the time that, as a newly wed bride, I vowed to prepare home-cooked meals each night.

For months afterward, I would wake in a panic and peer over the side of R’s crib. I would lean closer and closer until I could see his little chest moving up and down beneath his footie pajamas. If I didn’t hear the soft sounds of his breath right away, I might tap his foot or jostle his tiny arm. Looking back, this is probably why he didn’t sleep through the night consistently until he was almost one.

The first time I had to leave R or K with a care provider, who was not a member of our immediate families, I experienced what I imagine a panic attack would be like. It felt so unnatural to be leaving the most valuable entities I had in my possession with people that I had only conversed with a handful of times. I worried about falls, burns, choking, illness, abduction, car accidents, emotional trauma, abuse, poisoning, home invasions, unsecured firearms lurking in bedroom closets, second-hand smoke, attacks by dogs and wild animals, bullying by other children, drowning, fires, tornados, nuclear accidents, and tsunamis (we live in a land-locked state).

I subscribed to the saying, “Worrying works. 90% of the things I worry about never happen.” I figured if I could worry about it enough, I could prevent tragedy, and by extension, shield my heart from all that that would mean.

Anyone who is a parent can attest to the blind panic that often accompanies parenthood. The first time R bolted away from me in a crowded store, in the 60 seconds it took to reestablish visual contact with him, I found myself frantically thinking about what he was wearing so that I could describe it to law enforcement officers, and mentally penning desperate pleas to would-be kidnappers.

Another time, having fallen six feet from a piece of playground equipment and hit his head on a metal bar on the way down, I was preparing to rush R to the emergency room when I wiped away the copious amount of blood coming from his mouth to find a small cut. (It turns out the mouth bleeds more than other parts of the body. Who knew?)

During the swine flu scare a couple of years ago, I poured over the accounts of symptoms and the stories of small children stricken by the virus who lost their lives. I worried myself sick over every runny nose or fever that spring.

In light of recent events in the community and country, I find myself feeling more anxious than ever. From discussions I’ve had with friends and co-workers in recent days, I know that I’m not alone. For me, the most unsettling part of stories like these is that regardless of whether we move our children to nice, “safe” communities, get them annual flu shots, lock up poisonous chemicals in our houses, and are hyper vigilant about screening daycare providers, bad things can still happen. The uncertainty of being able to ensure the safety of what most parents consider to be the most precious resource the world will ever know is downright scary. It means that our hearts are vulnerable to chance occurrences, completely exposed to the whims of nature or strangers.

If anything positive has come out of the terrible stories and images that have been flashing across TV screens for the past week, it’s that we have had a lot of extra hugs, snuggles, books read, and “I love yous” in our house recently. The other night, as I was rocking K to sleep, I found myself marveling at the perfectly formed curls that rest just at the top of the neck of her pajamas on the back of her head. I have been really listening to R’s stories from preschool this week, instead of occasionally throwing in a distracted “mmm-hmm.” And let me tell you, I’ve learned so much about preschool socio-political issues. I had no idea Pre-K was such a jungle.

I’ll still insist on hand-holding when streets are crossed, having Highway Patrol inspected car seats, and I dread the day when I have to hand over a set of car keys to either of my children. The bottom line is that parenthood is terrifying a lot of the time, but I don’t know many parents who would trade the experience. I think this conversation from the 1989 movie Parenthood sums it up best:

Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

What a perfect analogy for what it means to be a parent.

Is there a doctor in the house?

I’m no math whiz, but there’s one equation of which I am certain. Take the number of children residing in one household and multiply by the number of hours each spends in daycare/preschool/school in a week. Divide by the number of weeks in a year, and multiply by the number of other children who share said classrooms, hallways, bathrooms and drinking fountains. The resulting number is roughly equal to the number of times you will answer your phone in the middle of a work day to hear the words every mother dreads. “Your child just threw up.”

Since the beginning of September, a week hasn’t gone by when someone in our house hasn’t been sick or injured. Between colds, fevers, stomach viruses, bruises and gashes, I’m starting to think it might be cheaper to just hire a doctor to live with us full-time than to pay the office copay. When the receptionist asks your child how last week’s art project turned out, you begin to wonder if you’ve accidentally wandered onto an episode of House.

Vomit doesn’t bother me the way that it does some. As a mother and former teacher, I’ve dealt with every color, odor, consistency, and volume out there. The first time R got a stomach bug as a baby, my husband picked him up from daycare and took him home for the day. When I arrived home from work, the house was eerily quiet. As I turned the corner into the living room, the sight that met my eyes was comical really (this is one of those things that’s easier to laugh about in retrospect). J and R were resting peacefully in the recliner, while every two feet or so from the kitchen to the front door lay cloth burp rags. Puzzled, I woke J to ask what was up. It seems that R wouldn’t stop puking, and J didn’t know what to do with all that vomit. So he covered each puddle over with a burp rag so that it could be dealt with when I got home. Thanks dear.

A couple of months ago, R woke on a school day morning complaining of a stomachache. Since this isn’t a terribly rare occurrence at our house, and since he ate almost all of his breakfast without a hitch and didn’t have a fever, I felt good about sending him on to school for the day. After lunch, the preschool director called to say that R was lying lethargically on the end of the playground slide, so she took his temperature. 102 degrees. Mother-of-the-year right here.

After I retrieved my ailing child, I decided to stop at Walgreens for some children’s Ibuprofen on the way home. R wrapped his hot little arms around my neck as we proceeded to the back of the store. (Side note- Why is it that pharmacies are always at the back of the store? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have them at the front so that people who aren’t feeling well don’t have as far to go? It would also cut down on the number of other shoppers they could potentially infect as they puff and hack their way down the aisles.) We had located the Ibuprofen, made it through the check out line, and were carrying our plunder back to the car. I was feeling confident that we were home free. I set R down in front of me while I unlocked the car doors. He swayed feverishly from side-to-side. I looked into his glassy eyes, and I knew. “Mom, I have to­—“ The words were still hanging in the air when the first wave of vomit hit my shoes. I attempted to quickly spin him around toward the empty pavement, but instead succeeded in hosing the front tire of the van parked beside us (apologies to the driver of the light blue late 90s model Ford Windstar parked at Walgreens that day). I looked around to see if there were witnesses, removed my vomit-covered shoes with as much dignity as possible, peeled R’s shirt off and got the heck out of there.

While R broke us into the joys of parenthood and bodily fluids, K has attempted to outdo any records he may have set by being the first of the two to only make it 20 minutes into a workday before vomiting. I had literally just removed my coat and sat down at my desk when the daycare provider called with the bad news. She started the conversation by asking if K had eaten something orange for breakfast. That’s never a good sign.

K also has the market cornered on most terrifying medical emergencies. We went out for pizza with my in-laws and niece on Halloween before taking the kids trick-or-treating. I was watching R and his cousin enjoying each other’s company when I noticed that K had a strange expression on her face. I had given her some diced peaches to eat while we waited for our pizza. K is what we call in our house an “enthusiastic” eater. When given a food that she enjoys, she doesn’t delicately select one piece at time, place it on her palate, and chew thoroughly while allowing the flavor to flood her taste buds before swallowing. No, she’s more of a shovel-it-in-and-swallow-it-whole kind of eater.

As I continued to watch her, it became clear to me that the expression in her eyes was one of panic. I had seen it on the faces of people who can’t swim and have suddenly been thrown into deep water. It suddenly occurred to me that she couldn’t breathe. Panicked, I yanked her up out of her seat and flipped her upside down over my thigh while slapping her back with my hand. I fleetingly wondered if I was hitting her too hard and hurting her, but in that moment, my fear that she wasn’t breathing outweighed any others. After what seemed like a century, but was probably mere seconds, she started screaming and a cube of slimy peach came flying out. I was so incredibly relieved that I didn’t even notice the trail of slobber and snot that stretched from my pant leg up to the shoulder of my sweater where she rested her head and wailed at the injustice of being treated so indelicately. I now completely understand where the expression, “You’re taking years off my life” came from. I aged 10 years in 60 seconds.

I think the past three months have desensitized me to illness and injury though. Last week, after telling R 15 times to stop running and leaping into the recliner (he likes it when it expels him backward), I watched as he sprinted toward it, but instead of being thrown backward, he hit his head on the solid wood arm rest of the couch. The THUNK that followed resonated through the living room. His head bounced off the armrest, onto the couch cushion and finally came to rest on the floor. It was kind of like watching a pinball machine. He lay there, stunned, but finally came up holding his hand over a growing lump on his forehead. (Think Yosemite Sam after Bugs Bunny hits him over the head with a mallet.) He cried, I comforted, and tried to refrain from saying, “See what happens when you don’t listen to your mother?” In the end, he kept ice on his head for 10 minutes and was fine. And I only checked to make sure his pupils were dilating properly once. Hey, for me it’s progress.  

This Land is Their Land

This blog is not political in nature, and I like it that way. Those who know me well already know which way I tend to lean (although, if I’m honest, it’s more of a complete slope). This blog exists to keep a record for my children of their lives growing up and acts as mommy therapy for me. However, on the eve following one of the most contentious elections in modern U.S. history, I can’t help but look at the outcome of this election from a mother’s point of view.

Listening to presidential candidates in the months leading up to Election Day brings to mind the first few dates of a new relationship. Your date is trying his best to impress you with his wit, hygiene and table manners. You think to yourself, “This is the perfect man!” You give him your vote. Fast-forward six months into the future, and dates involve a drive-thru dollar menu and deodorant has become optional.

We the people exercise an enormous amount of faith when voting for any candidate. We hold candidates to their word that they will perform the way they have promised. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t, but most often the proverbial red tape gets in the way, frustrating voters and constipating the system once again.

This election year, I thought a lot about what I wanted in a president for my children, and here is the list I came up with:

1)   I want a president who cares more about people than about the bottom line. We instill in children the importance of treating others with kindness, respect, and dignity regardless of who they are. Unfortunately, we adults rarely model these same principles. Our most vulnerable citizens (children, the elderly, the mentally ill, individuals with disabilities, and battered women) are often the first to suffer due to cuts in funding to programs they depend on for their every day existence. There is evidence that even the most primitive of cultures provided for these individuals’ needs. Today, we reward greed by distributing more resources to those who already have the ability to give themselves millions of dollars in year-end bonuses. In the words of my preschooler, “That’s not fair.”

2)   I want a president who makes me proud to live in this country and to raise my children here. And I want the leader of the country I live in to have the respect and admiration of other leaders around the world. I want R and K to know that they are blessed to live in a country where our tax money can provide them with clean drinking water, the right to a free education, and the privilege to vote because those things are not a reality in many parts of the world. But I also want them to understand that the lives of individuals not afforded these rights are every bit as valuable as their own. They just happened to be born into different circumstances.

3)   For my children, I want a president who understands the difference between leading with confidence and leading with arrogance. I want my kids to know that using fear to influence policy decisions is not leadership at all. Hasty, impassioned decisions rarely end well. I want to know that our Commander-in-Chief exhausts every option available before sending troops to war. I don’t know any mother in the world who thinks war is a great idea because every mother sees her own children in those soldiers. No mother would wish the pain of losing a child on another woman.

4)   I hope that my children have a president who understands the importance of compromise and unity. The media reports that not since the Civil War has the country been so divided on so many issues. This election is an opportunity for the leaders and the citizens of this country to put aside party differences and agree that we all want the same things in the end. We want strong futures for our children and grandchildren, and we want to be able to honestly tell them, “If you work hard, you will have the opportunity to go to school, to be a homeowner, to own your own business, or to enjoy your retirement when the time comes.”

5)   I want R and K to understand that getting to the top doesn’t have to be at the expense of others. I was watching team rock-climbing this summer while I tried to get the baby down for a nap, and I was amazed at the system they used to ensure that both climbers reached the top safely. It appeared that both were tethered to the same rope. One climber would make his way up the rope while the other waited. Once the first climber reached his destination, he would unhook part of the climbing apparatus and hand it back to the second climber, thus ensuring his safe ascent. The second climber would return the favor when he caught up to his fellow climber. Everyone has had some help getting to where they are today, whether that was supportive parents, a caring teacher, or a federal student loan. Wouldn’t it be great if we could start passing the rope back?

6)   My wish for a president for my children is that they will have a leader who values their rights as individuals. I want R and K to understand that it’s okay to have their own moral standards and guidelines, and that they should follow their own consciences, but that it’s not okay to impose their moral framework on others. I also want a president who understands that there is a lot more gray area than black and white in most situations. I hope that mine and other children will not be discriminated against due to gender or the gender of the person they choose to spend their life with someday. I hope that both of my children always retain the right to make decisions about their own healthcare, guided by their own moral compasses.

I’m sure I could think of additional qualities (nice teeth, a melodic voice for making long speeches bearable, and the use of proper grammar) that I appreciate in a president, but I will end here. Regardless of whether you’re feeling hopeful or disappointed tonight, the world will keep spinning. The country now begins the task of learning to work together. From the annals of preschool wisdom comes an appropriate quote as we move forward. “You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.”

For better or worse

Today is our wedding anniversary. We left the kids with the grandparents yesterday and hit the big city to celebrate. We ended the day with a fondue dinner at a nice restaurant, and were navigating our way back to the highway toward home. I turned left and was concentrating on listening to the Tom Tom for directions, looking up to admire a swanky house on my right when it happened. I hit the curb full-force on the passenger’s side. I pulled over on the very busy street, and J got out to survey the damage. Both passenger-side tires were shredded to the rims. So here we were, 60 miles from home, standing on the sidewalk next to our disabled vehicle at dusk.

After we called the insurance tow service and the police (someone needed to secure the area), I started calling around to find someone who could replace two tires on a Saturday night. This is kind of like trying to get the stuffed animal you want out of a mechanical claw machine in a bowling alley. Every place I called closed at 7 p.m. The tow truck wasn’t going to be able to get to us for at least an hour, maybe longer.

Meanwhile, not one, but two police cruisers arrived and set up flares behind our car. With their help, I was finally able to locate a Wal-Mart 30 minutes in the opposite direction of home that could help us if we could get there before 8 o’clock. As the minutes ticked by with no sign of our truck, I could feel my stress level rising. To make matters worse, I called my mom to see how the kids were doing, and learned that R’s stomach was upset, and K had been cranky for most of the day.

The tow truck finally arrived an hour-and-a-half later, and Officer Hernandez (we were on a last name basis at this point) generously offered to drive us ahead of the tow truck so that we could reach Wal-Mart in time. Our anniversary ended with a ride in a police cruiser and a positive confirmation that the individuals in the photos on the “People of Wal-Mart” website aren’t PhotoShopped, but actually do exist. (Think thong underwear worn outside of flesh-colored stretch pants.)

The most memorable part of our evening out (and there are so many to choose from) was my husband’s reaction to all of this. He didn’t yell or place blame, although I was clearly at fault. There were a few jokes referencing moving curbs, but that was it. He stood in the dark with me, helping me figure out what to do next without complaining, even though I’m sure it wasn’t the evening he had in mind. He didn’t even flinch when we had to shell out $200 for tires.

In the weeks leading up to our wedding six years ago, I was terrified that I would freeze and forget my vows in front of an entire church filled with our family and friends, so I neurotically recited them every night before I went to bed. If there’s a silver lining to OCD, it’s that I still remember them by heart:

I, S, take you, J to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

My twenty-five-year-old-self thought those words were incredibly romantic, but I know now that that girl had no idea what she was really agreeing to. Over the past six years, we have weathered the deaths of family members, the births of our two children, family vacations, the serious illnesses of our parents, personal loss that brought us to our knees, the flu, career changes, broken down vehicles, hospitalization, and home improvement projects.

It’s easy to love and honor another person when life is moving along on cruise control, but it takes a lot more effort when we hit a curb. It’s not the wedding day vows or the happy photos from family vacations that build a marriage. It’s being up together at 2 a.m. cleaning vomit off of the carpet because your two-year-old has the flu. And it’s having that person beside you when you get the news that your mom has cancer. Those are the moments that define a couple.

We are by no means a perfect couple. We argue, and we drive each other crazy at least once per day (more on the weekends), but in a world where romance and sex are the prevailing images associated with relationships, I’m grateful that I also have a partner who is my friend. I think Dan Seals says it better than I ever could in this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPnhSFrkpno&feature=related

Here’s to you Ace. Happy #6!

The story of she

A year ago today, I was camped out on our living room couch awaiting the arrival of our younger child. I did not actually give birth on the couch (just wanted to reassure those who have sat on our couch recently), but I hoped that she would make her appearance shortly. I had been in early labor for a few days, and I was as done as a Thanksgiving turkey on Black Friday.

I had been to see my midwife the day before. She listened to the baby’s heartbeat and asked about kick counts. For those not familiar with the term, kick counts are done by counting the number of movements a fetus makes within a given time frame, and were invented by doctors to scare the living bejeezus out of pregnant women. The midwife wasn’t satisfied with my answer, so she hooked me up to a fetal monitor to see exactly how often the baby was moving. Forty-five minutes later, she still wasn’t satisfied, so she ordered an ultrasound. By this time, I was freaking out, (I know this will shock those of you who are accustomed to my usually calm demeanor) and called my mom and husband.

My mom arrived in time to accompany me into the ultrasound room. The only way to describe an ultrasound of a 40-week fetus is to picture one of those suction-cupped stuffed animals people attach to their back windshields. It was obvious that this kid wasn’t moving because there was no place for her to move to. Her squishy little face was pinned against the side of my uterus, and she seemed to be mouthing, “Let me out!” She did, however, decide to cooperate by lackadaisically kicking her feet and waving her arms a few times. The tech also noted that I was having contractions, but nothing to get excited about, so they sent me home.

The next morning, my parents, who had been on baby watch for weeks, took R for the day in anticipation of us making a trip to labor and delivery. At six o’clock that evening, with no baby in sight, I called them and asked them to bring him home.

I woke up around 2 AM with strong, but not excruciating contractions (It’s important to note here that they had to give me Pitocin to get labor started with R, so my perception of excruciating is skewed, as Pitocin is the Devil’s drug). I rolled (think beached whale) toward my husband and whispered that I thought I was in labor. He mumbled something incoherent, and I figured we were still a few hours away from those TV scenes where the father delivers his child on the bathroom floor using a shower curtain, bath towel, and twine, so I decided to let him sleep.

At 5 AM, I woke him up and asked him to call my parents. Half asleep, he asked, “Why?” Oh, because I routinely enjoy waking family members at all hours of the night. My mom arrived exactly 2.5 seconds later, looking disheveled, and we were off.

When we arrived at the hospital, it was still too early to use the main entrance, so we had to go through the emergency room and past security. I could tell labor was progressing because thinking, walking and talking simultaneously were becoming increasingly difficult. The security guard on duty asked J where we were going. He told him we needed to get to labor and delivery while I panted and rocked behind him. The security guard said, “Who’s the patient?” Really, buddy?

Once in the labor room, I began the process of having a baby without epidural or other pain-relieving drugs, an extremely liberating choice I would make again, but one that always seems like a better idea when not actually in labor. (When I was going through transition with R, I begged for drugs in a moment of weakness, and J reminded me that I had told him that I would say that, but to not let me give in. He can’t remember we need milk, but THIS he hears and remembers me saying?!)

I have to say, my husband is a real trooper when it comes to the whole birthing routine. He’s hung in there through two deliveries, and this time around, cautiously stroked the top of my hand as I breathed through contractions. (Side story- J’s caution is probably due to the fact that, during my last labor, while he was trying to supportively rub my back as he was taught in birthing class, I hissed through gritted teeth that I’d thank him to not touch me ever. Again, I blame the Pitocin.)

We walked, rocked, breathed, and cussed until I just knew it was time for K to arrive. Except it wasn’t because she decided to turn her shoulder at the last minute and got stuck, so back up and walking I got again, vowing that this would be the story I would tell her every time she shouts that she hates me when she’s a teenager.

I will skip the details of her actual delivery, because what kid really wants to relive that? But there you have it. That’s how K came into our lives. A year ago, it was hard to imagine being a family of four, and now I can barely remember a time when she wasn’t here.

She’s walking now and says dada, mama, and uh-oh. She also makes an adorable scrunch-nosed face when something displeases her, and raises her eyebrows, forming her lips into an “o” when something surprises her. The other day, she saw her opportunity when R left some action figures out on the couch. With one in each grimy hand, she gazed lovingly on the forbidden objects until she saw her brother coming toward her. Panicked, she turned to make her get-away on still uncertain legs, but alas he was too fast for her, and she crawled away in defeat.

K is starting to develop preferences of her own. For example, bananas=good; green beans=bad, Papa’s mustache=good; strange, creepy Wal-Mart checker’s mustache=bad. She doesn’t want to cuddle as much anymore, which makes me immensely sad, but also makes the moments when she’s tired, sick, or sad and climbs into my lap that much sweeter. I love to breathe in her baby smells and rub my cheek against the duck-fluff on her head. Holding a sleepy baby is one of the most euphoric feelings in the world.

Happy Birthday Eve, little girl. In the words of Peter Pan, “You are my happy thought.”

Things I hear and see

 

I took the kids to the doctor’s office for their annual flu shots last week. As a parent and language enthusiast, I know how important word choice can be. So I carefully avoided the word “shot” in favor of the more benign term “vaccination.”

R: “Mom, why are we going to see Dr. N?”

Me: “We’re going to get flu vaccinations so you can stay healthy.”

R seemed satisfied with this explanation and said nothing more about it until we reached the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist loudly announced that if we were there for the flu SHOT clinic, we needed to proceed to another part of the building. The situation deteriorated from there. R began screaming that he didn’t want a shot long before we even saw the inside of an exam room. So I am now holding K under one arm while trying to wrestle 40 pounds of terrified preschooler through the waiting room door with the other. (The Crocodile Hunter has nothing on me).

When the nurse called our names, the hysteria started anew. Originally, I had planned for R to go first because I knew that once he heard his sister’s reaction to the “vaccination,” he would put the pieces together. However, all mothers know that even the best-laid plans often fail when dealing with actual children. R squeezed himself into the corner between the wall and the exam table and refused to come out. Five years and two children ago, I probably could have squeezed through the crack to get him, but no dice now. I could tell the nurse was becoming impatient, and she suggested that we start with K. I reluctantly agreed.

K, who is (blessedly) at an age where she has no idea what’s going on, looked trustingly into my eyes as I held her sweaty little hands in mine. She didn’t even flinch when the nurse poked her. A good five seconds passed before an expression of utter betrayal crossed her face. Then the wailing began.

R, who was observing from the crack between table and wall, empathetically began to wail along with his sister. I fished K’s pacifier out of my pocket, gave it to her, and she was fine. R, on the other hand continued voicing his displeasure loudly. I tried reasoning (“You want to stay healthy for soccer this winter, don’t you?”), bribing (“As soon as we’re done, we can get ice cream, AND you can have extra cherries.”), and begging, (“Come on buddy. There are other people waiting”). Finally, I was able to grab ahold of one flailing wrist and maneuver him out into the open. It took two nurses (and one to hold K), and me bear-hugging his upper body to get him onto the exam table.

After he was finished, he sobbed while he chose a sucker from the treat box, all the way through the waiting room where other anxious-looking children took one look at him and clung more tightly to their parents, down the front steps of the doctor’s office and into the backseat of the car. He also shouted “Don’t-ever-let-them-do-that-to-me-again-mom!” between sobs before exhausting himself. Next year, it’s dad’s turn.

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R had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of his Halloween costume, which I ordered the week before. Everyday after school, he would hurry out of the car and run down the driveway to check the mailbox, only to be met with disappointment when all it contained were envelopes. (Four-year-olds are the reason the US Postal Service will never be completely out of business). It finally arrived on Wednesday, and he immediately stripped down to his Batman skivvies to try it on. After R had sufficiently admired himself, he took the costume off and ran around the house shirtless.

I was fixing dinner in the kitchen when I looked up and noticed that K had pulled herself up and walked along the exterior wall of the living room, wandering into the kitchen doorway where her brother was standing. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, I saw K extend her tiny finger and place it squarely in R’s belly button. I expected him to jump back, knocking her down with his sudden movement. But, he stood statue-still and allowed her to examine his naval for several seconds. Once her curiosity was satisfied, K turned and crawled back into the living room, and R continued chucking foam balls across the dining room. It's the simple things in life I guess.

Becoming real

One day when R was just a few months past three, he looked up at our engagement picture (where it had been hanging on the wall since before he was born), and asked, “Who are those people mommy?”

In just over a month, I will be another year older. Before I had kids, I had approximately 36 bottles, creams, powders, sprays and small electrical appliances that I used to get ready to leave the house on any given day. In my younger years, I scrutinized the evenness of my eye shadow and tried on six different pairs of shoes before leaving the house for a date.

Today, if I discover the spit up trickling down my back, AND have the time to wipe it off before running out the door in the morning, I consider the day a success. Time that I once devoted to primping; I would now rather spend getting extra strawberry-jam-covered kisses while banana goo is unceremoniously wiped in my hair.

After K was born, I noticed that my hair was just a little less shiny (notwithstanding the banana goo), and there were a few more lines around my eyes. During those first months when new mothers sleep less than is even humanly possible, I sported dark circles too. And don’t get me started on what the miracle of life does to everything from the neck down.

Not long ago, R asked me to read the classic children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit to him. In summary, a little boy gets a stuffed rabbit for Christmas, which becomes the boy’s favorite toy, accompanying him through childhood, until the boy loses interest and the rabbit is cast aside. The whole book is told from the rabbit’s perspective. Personally, I’ve always thought it was kind of a depressing story. But, as I was reading it aloud to my four-year-old, I heard my own voice reading these lines:

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

I laid in bed that night thinking about these words. What I decided is that I’m not getting older. I’m just getting more real. Moms aren’t born real. They’re made that way by their children.

Say what?!

Long before I was a wife or mother, I was a high school English teacher. This is a job that merits hazard pay and requires a sense of humor if one is to survive (and that’s just the first week). In honor of the beginning of a new school year, here are a couple of my favorite memories from my time in the classroom:

I was dazzling and captivating a classroom full of freshmen with a rousing rendition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In Act 1, Scene 1, there’s a confrontation between Tybalt and Benvolio, archenemies from the houses of Capulet and Montague. At some point during this argument, Lord Capulet enters the scene and utters the following line, directed toward his wife, Lady Capulet:

Capulet: What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!

(For those who may be rusty in Shakespearean literature, this roughly translates to “Hand me my sword. Hurry!”)

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a head bolt suddenly upright. The male student, to whom the head belonged, gazed at me through a curtain of uncut bangs. I was fairly certain that this student had, up to this point, slept through most of my enthralling tribute to Mr. Shakespeare. However, he now appeared to have something urgent to say.

STUDENT: “Uh, Miss C? (This was before I was married.) Did he just call his wife a ho? ‘Cause my moms (yes, you read that right, and no this child did not have two mothers) and my girlfriend would freak if someone called them that.”

(*Urban dictionary defines the slang term ho as: a Prostitute, Whore, Hooker, Tramp, Slut).

ME: “Of course, I didn’t know Shakespeare personally, but I don’t think that’s what he had in mind when he penned that line.” Moving right along…

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When I was pregnant with R, I taught a class that was disproportionally full of sophomore boys. I enjoyed teaching this class, and participated in friendly banter with students between more serious academic moments.

Anyone who has ever taught can tell you that, occasionally, things come out of your mouth before your brain has fully processed what it’s about to say. It’s a hazard of repeating yourself 6 times per day.

This particular class frequently attempted to negotiate smaller homework assignments, and I frequently shut them down. But one day when I was about 8 ½ months pregnant, I was feeling generous (and tired). When they started in on the homework negotiations, I decided to give them a break and shorten the writing portion of the assignment.

STUDENTS: “Do we have to do the entire writing prompt?”

ME: “Just do the first part. I’m feeling easy.”

An eerie silence fell over the room as 20 pairs of eyes immediately flew to my bulging abdomen, as if it provided all the proof they needed to qualify my previous statement. In that moment, I realized that I had just announced to a classroom full of adolescents that I had loose morals. A split second later, the room erupted in laughter, and my face turned 8 different shades of crimson before I had to laugh too. But I never used the word “easy” to describe myself in any context again.

A happy school year to all of my teacher friends!

Daddy's girl

R and I had a momma/son date yesterday. We rode bikes at the lake, played on the playground, had lunch out together, ran errands, and finished the afternoon with ice cream. He’s growing and changing so quickly that it’s nice to have the time to really focus on his stories and thoughts. He told the cashier at the store that he “likes to spend time just with his mom alone.” (He’s a heart-melter, that one). So, my husband and K had some bonding time of their own.

When I was pregnant with K, I was sure that I was having another boy. When the ultrasound tech announced that she would be a she, my husband’s first words were, “I guess we’ll be paying for a wedding someday.” Secretly, I think he was a little nervous about having a daughter. He grew up in a house with an older brother and no female cousins living close by. Girls were (are?) a mystery to him, one that I have attempted over the years to explain.

Those who know my husband know that he isn’t an outwardly expressive person. He prefers the strong-silent type routine as a general rule. That’s why it absolutely gets me when he walks through the door after work, takes one look at K’s beaming grin, and his entire face lights up. It’s like both of them have been waiting for that moment all day long.

I have noticed a general change in his philosophy as well. His daughter will not be wearing anything excessively short, tight, or low-cut EVER. She also will not consume alcohol until she is over the age of 21 (and then, only in the presence of her parents), he will approve all dates before she leaves the house, and she will have a curfew of eleven o’clock (still haven’t gotten clarification on AM or PM). I have known my husband since we were in high school, so I can tell you that his philosophies have changed A LOT since he was seventeen (or maybe just since he’s had a daughter of his own).

My sneaking suspicion though is that I will be doing a lot of the enforcing, and he will be doing a lot of the giving in. K has already mastered the “smile-to-get-what-you-want” shtick. Feminists the world-over condemn this practice, but any woman who’s really honest with herself knows she’s used it once or twice (no speeding ticket, just a warning, anyone?). And she probably started by practicing it on dad or grandpa.

A couple of weeks ago, K suddenly decided the kitchen was the place to be for whatever reason. After tirelessly moving her back into the living room for the hundredth time, my husband sternly said, “K, come back here.” Her response was to stop mid-crawl to grin over her shoulder at her weary father, throw him a quick wave bye-bye, and then continue on her way across the forbidden linoleum. Way to show her who’s the boss there dear.

After K was born, I heard the song “I Loved Her First” by Heartland on the radio, (here’s a link to the video if you haven’t heard it:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxtK169-_L0) and in the hormonal storm that comes in the weeks after you have given birth, tears rolled. The general gist of the song can be understood in the refrain:

 But I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep

I love the relationship that my husband and K are developing. What I hope she is learning from him at a very young age is that a real man will look out for her best interests instead of try to exploit her, and will protect her from growing up too fast. I hope that when it’s time for her to start dating, she doesn’t choose the guy in the bar (should she ever be allowed to see the inside of one) with the most polished line, but the man whose face lights up when she walks through the door.

Why God made grandparents

I’m convinced that somewhere over the years and many translations of the book of Genesis, a couple of pages were left out. While we know what God did on Days 1 thru 7 of creation, it’s Day 10 that counts. On Day 10, God, in all Her infinite wisdom, created grandparents.

By Day 10, the average human mother had played 20 games of Candy Land, listened to approximately 300 knock-knock jokes, read the entire collected workings of Dr. Seuss 12 times, and scraped six different shades of Play-Doh off of the kitchen floor. If you’ve never seen what reading that much Dr. Seuss can do to a woman, you’ll know when she opens her mouth: “Please pass the bread I said. Do you need a dish for fish? Would you like it red or blue? Does the baby need one too?”

So God created grandparents so the species would survive. It doesn’t matter how beastly a child is acting, his grandparents can always find a reason for the behavior that does not reflect directly on the child. “Oops, looks like somebody’s tired.” “Too much excitement opening all those presents today.” “That much sugar disrupts the delicate balance of little bodies.” Are these really the same people who raised my siblings and me?

My son loves to go to his grandparents’ houses. Besides having novel toys to play with, there is no one in the world except for your grandma who will let you choose a movie, and then watch “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” six times in the middle of July when the heat index is 113 degrees outside. The same woman who once condemned cereal boxes with manically happy cartoon characters due to high sugar content, can now declare ice cream before dinner perfectly acceptable without batting an eyelash. So we try not to take it personally when, having spent the night with Grandma and Papa, R takes one look at us on their doorstep and immediately bursts into tears (and believe me, they are not tears of joy because he has missed us so much).

I think it’s great that my kids live so close to both sets of grandparents though. It’s one of the reasons that we’ve chosen to live here, rather than say, Maui. There’s something special about the relationship between children and their grandparents. I hope R and K know that their parents love them completely and unconditionally. We try to always be present for them, to eat dinner together as a family, and tuck everybody in with hugs and kisses at the end of the day.

But grandparents have the luxury of sitting on the floor for hours; stacking and restacking towers of blocks while the kids take turns knocking them over. With no thoughts of how much laundry is piling up or worries over that cherry popsicle stain on the carpet that will set without immediate attention, grandparents can spend those 10 extra minutes at the park. Grandparents get to be the “yes-men.”

Of course, the real winners here are the parents. After God finished creating grandparents, and shipped all children to their houses for the weekend, She sat back on the couch (after having first removed the collection of pointy Ninja Turtle accessories from between the cushions), looked at all that She had made, and saw that it was very good.

Evolution of a marriage

We’re in the process of painting our bathrooms. We hired someone to paint the exterior of the house this summer, which looked so good when it was finished, I decided why stop there?

If this were the theatre, my husband would be cast in the role of the long-suffering martyr. His defense when I get an idea in my head is to back away slowly and be as invisible as possible until the project is complete.

Early on in the marriage, I would ask his opinion on paint swatches or towel colors, and then buy what I had planned to in the first place. He would insist he really didn’t care whether the towels I bought were slate grey or heather grey, and that I should buy whatever I liked. That’s what he actually said.

What I heard was, “I care more about this basketball game I’m trying to watch than about our home. I would rather shout obscenities at the television than spend two minutes weighing the aesthetic appeal of chrome vs. brushed nickel fixtures.” This usually ended in a lengthy discussion (okay, lecture) on the importance of communication in a healthy relationship (I can’t help it; I’m a trained counselor).

Six years and two children later, we’re lucky to have any private conversation that doesn’t revolve around whose turn it is to take out the diaper pail. Still, I think we’ve learned a few things.

So when I announced my intentions to paint the bathrooms, he pretended to be genuinely interested in the multitude of paint chips scattered across the dining room table, and I pretended that I hadn’t already chosen a paint color three days before. Duty done, he wandered into the living room to watch the Olympics in peace (Okay, not in total peace. The four-year-old was shouting the same phrase over and over at the top of his lungs, while the baby munched on the rogue Cheerios that had lodged themselves in the elastic of her pants at breakfast). But everyone was happy.

I'll try them all please

Occasionally, in a fit of drama, the four-year-old will accuse me of loving his sister more than I love him. When this happens, I reassure him that I love him and his sister equally, but if he only knew…

I will admit that when I was pregnant this time around, I had fleeting moments of self-doubt. How would I ever love another child with the same intensity (some might say smothering affection) that I had loved my first? From the moment they put him on my chest, I forgot that seconds before I had accused him of trying to kill me.

I had never loved like that before. Let me explain, in case my husband is reading, that I do, in fact love him (believe me, I am not the type of woman who would launder the underwear of a man I didn’t love). This, however, was in a completely different category altogether. After all, when I met my husband, I did not instantaneously think, “If a train were barreling toward you, I would jump onto the tracks without a moment’s hesitation.” This feeling was so overwhelming that I had a hard time imaging I could feel it about anyone else, but when they handed me my daughter, there it was again.

I love my children for different reasons, and it’s because of their differences that I’m able to love them both. My son, despite looking just like his father, inherited my, shall we say, intensity for life. He speaks, plays, and moves with passion. He likes to get his own way (must be his dad’s side coming out there), which sometimes causes us to butt heads. We are alike in many ways, both unable to mask emotion on our faces. When something is important to us and we love it, we go at it full-tilt. If it’s not, well, we’re stubborn to the end. He will randomly say things like, “Mom, your heart will always be in my heart” (where does a four-year-old come up with this stuff?) or “I love you, Mom.” He is loyal and will stand up for himself and others. He’s compassionate, always the first on the soccer field to rush over and see why somebody’s on the ground. He got his dad’s sense of irony, and his humor is sometimes wry and sometimes silly.

Our daughter is, of course, still developing her own personality, but already she’s different from her brother. What R took out of the genetic pool from my husband, K took from me. Our baby pictures are interchangeable except for eye color. She is easy-going, playful, almost always smiling. She has recently started diving for people’s noses with her mouth open; then laughing hysterically at their reactions (usually fear, as she has just grown four sharp new teeth). Whereas my son started getting impatient with being held soon after he began crawling, she loves to snuggle. I have a feeling that she may be what my grandparents used to refer to as, “a character.”

Those who know me know that I love dessert. When I’m offered a choice between two different types of cake, I always want to try both. I love the chocolate cake for its bold taste, and smooth texture, but I also love the carrot cake because it has a hint of spice and some nuttiness. I appreciate them because they each have their own distinct flavor.

So what I want to tell R when he accuses me of not loving him and his sister the same is that he’s right. I don’t. Having more than one kid is like having your choice of desserts, and more dessert is always a good thing in my book.

The Great American Restroom Tour

If the visitor's bureau ever decides to add this to the list of tourist activities, I would be a highly qualified candidate for tour guide. I know bathrooms, not only in the city I live, but in cities all across the state and most of the Midwest. I was not always such a bathroom connoisseur, but my oldest child has helped me to hone this skill.

He never has to go before we leave home, or even as soon as we enter the store. Those moments of desperate urgency hit right about the time I have just gone through the frozen section of the supermarket, and now have a cart full of rapidly melting peas.

When it was just us two, a quick trip to the bathroom was easy, but add a second child, and you have chaos. I cannot, of course, take a shopping cart full of merchandise into the restroom, so I must now engage in that critical thinking and problem solving my high school Algebra teacher warned me I would need some day. Here are my options:

1) Unbuckle the baby and take her into the restroom with us, while I pray that some overzealous store clerk doesn't confiscate my cart.

2) Allow my son to enter the restroom alone. Not gonna happen. I watch Law and Order.

3) Pull the cart as close to the entrance to the bathroom as possible while balancing on one foot, and holding the door open with the other. Continue to maintain eye contact with stall door, and ask son every 30 seconds if he is finished yet. (Occasionally, another restroom patron will answer.)

I can tell you this from my experience. Bed, Bath, and Beyond tops my list, due to a pleasant floral scent that must come from somewhere in the Beyond section. Department store restrooms are hit and miss, while Wal-mart makes me cringe and pray that he only has to pee. Otherwise, I will be holding him two inches above the toilet, trying not to think about what incurable diseases might lurk on the seat below.

At the very bottom are the gas station restrooms that require one to ask for a key before entering. If you have to lock up your restroom, that is never a good sign, and in my experience, most of these have not been cleaned since some time during the Reagan administration. I also do not relish answering questions about the condom machines hanging half-hazardly from the wall. Someday he's going to get wise to me and realize there really isn't a market for balloons in gas station bathrooms.

We went to Sea World this summer, which offers dolphins, sharks, stingrays, and dancing sea lions. My husband carefully mapped out our day, noting all of the attractions we didn't want to miss. I looked over his shoulder and silently wondered what scent the liquid soap was and whether they had paper towels or hand dryers. How long do you think we can keep the baby in diapers?