On Happiness

K turned two a couple of weeks ago. As I watched her savor cupcakes and ice cream and rip into presents, I was struck by how much joy children find in the simple acts of living. I can’t remember the last time that I stuffed an entire chocolate cupcake into my mouth with abandon.

Children are notoriously impulsive. R shows no hesitation flying down the driveway on his scooter or throwing his body to the ground during a soccer game. K’s recklessness in the swimming pool would drive any parent to require her to wear a life jacket until she’s 30. The risks that adults carefully weigh and consider are only after thoughts in a kid’s world.

Somewhere along the road to adulthood, we grow into individuals who are self-conscious and afraid to take chances and fail. Some might call this good sense. Nobody wants to get hurt, and bones heal more slowly when you’re 40 than when you’re four.

But this indecision creates many roadblocks in our quest for happiness. The very act of risking without knowing what the outcome will be is what makes life exhilarating. Without change and risk, we are destined to live in a perpetual state of monotony. I’m certainly not suggesting that my children (or anyone else for that matter) race trains, play Russian roulette or get tattooed while inebriated. But there's got to be a happy medium between reckless irresponsibility and paralyzing caution.

One day, when R and K have reached adulthood, and faced with a major life decision, frantically find themselves conducting risk-benefit analysis in their heads, here are some of the things I would tell them about what I’ve learned on my own quest for happiness:

-Try new things. Order something you’ve never had before at a restaurant. Take a yoga class. Have a conversation with a stranger (in a well-lit, busy location). Get a new haircut. Go somewhere you’ve never been.

-Live with abandon. Jump into the pool without checking the temperature first. When a good song comes on, sing out loud in a public place. Wear white to a barbecue. Laugh until you snort milk out of your nose.

-Take risks. Accept a new job. Choose the red shoes instead of sensible beige. Say, “I love you” without wondering if the other person will say it back. When we stop risking, we deny ourselves the opportunity to live fully.

-Know yourself. Know who you are all alone without anyone else’s expectations. Take time to do things that make you happy. Throw off the idea that it’s selfish to take care of your own needs. When we do this, it allows us to give to others willingly, not resentfully.

When our founding fathers penned the Declaration of Independence, they valued happiness so highly that they called the pursuit of Happiness an unalienable right. We aren’t guaranteed happiness, only the right to pursue it. I would tell R and K to avoid being their own biggest obstacles to that pursuit. When happiness floats into view, grab onto it with both hands and hold on tight. Don’t let go and don’t look backward or forward. Just savor it like a fistful of chocolate cupcake.  

 Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get, you’ve got to make for yourself. –Alice Walker

Fecal Matters

Last night, I was paying bills when J came into the kitchen laughing so hard he had tears streaming down his face. I asked him what was so funny. Words escaped him as he attempted to gasp out an answer, so he simply handed me a small, photo copied book that he had found in R’s backpack.

It was bound neatly at the top by two staples, clearly the work of an adult. The front cover featured two cartoon children, one a boy and one a girl. Above them, the book read My First Day of School By R. R had neatly printed his name on the line provided and colored the pictured children in with crayons.

“What a fun idea,” I thought, making mental note to add it to his box of keepsakes.

I continued to flip through the book. There was a page with a picture of a red schoolhouse. R’s teacher had neatly written the name of his school at the bottom of the page, and again, crayons were his choice of medium. A self-portrait of R followed, and then a page with his teacher’s name, and another page that listed the number of boys and girls in his class.

By this point, I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about his upcoming kindergarten experience. With a sentimental smile on my lips, I flipped to the next page, and this is what I saw:

Stunned, I wasn’t sure I had read it correctly the first time, but after looking at the accompanying drawing, there was no doubt about it. It was what I thought it was, and it explained J’s uncontrolled mirth.

After I recovered from my own uncontrolled laughing, crying, gasping fit, (trying to be as silent as possible so R couldn’t hear me from the next room) I went from feeling amused to mortified. Had his teacher seen his all-too-accurate depiction of a pile of feces? Perhaps if she had just seen the drawing, she thought he wanted to learn more about baking bread. However, R had left nothing to chance by carefully printing the word P-O-O-P at the top of the page.

I composed myself, banished J to our bedroom (he can’t keep a straight face when dealing with situations like this to save his life) and sat down to have a chat with the R-man.

ME: “R, I really like this book that you made at school today, but there’s something that I want to talk to you about.”

R: “What?”

ME: (Holding up page in question): “Why did you write that you want to learn more about poop?”

R: “It’s the word I can spell and write the best besides my name.”

ME: “Why did you need to write it out? (Pleading tone enters my voice.) Couldn’t you have just drawn a picture?”

R: “I wanted to make sure everyone knew what it was.”

The conversation ended with us brainstorming (with J’s help) other topics that R would like to learn more about this year (dinosaurs, volcanoes, counting money, and reading) and outlining the only occasions in which “poop” will be an appropriate response to a school assignment in the future (while studying the digestive system or dissecting owl pellets in science class).

Luckily, I think R’s teacher has been working with 5-and-6-year-olds long enough to find a modicum of humor in this situation. The next time I see her though, I will be wondering if the twinkle in her eye has anything to do with the first assignment R did in her classroom. To all of my elementary teacher friends, there is a special place behind the pearly gates for you someday.

A New Beginning

Before he finally crawled, R spent months on his hands and knees, hind end in the air, rocking back and forth. Occasionally his top-heaviness would get the better of him, and he would lean too far forward and tumble over. The first time he managed to coordinate hands, knees and feet in a way that allowed him to move across the living room floor, I startled him with my sudden shrieks, urging his dad to come and see what he was doing (I’ve found that subsequent children don’t suffer nearly the level of post-traumatic stress that first-borns are subjected to, not because we aren’t just as excited by their feats, but because we’ve seen the effect too much enthusiasm can have). After he recovered from his shell shock, R continued across the living room floor, but paused to look back over his shoulder at us, as if to reassure himself that we were still where he had left us, grinning like idiots.

He was not nearly so cautious a few months later when he started walking. With the abandon of someone who has never fallen from an upright position before, R would suddenly let go of the furniture that separated him from disaster and attempt a step. I once thought that stretching one’s arms out in front of the body in an attempt to protect it from hitting the ground was an in-born reflex, but it’s not. It turns out that it’s a learned response to painful stimuli. There’s really no other way to teach this important life lesson. I would follow him as he barreled around on his toddler legs, trying to anticipate any unsteadiness that might lead to a face-plant, but in the end, I had to let him fall a couple of times before he understood the arm-face-pain connection.

Having mastered the art of bipedalism, the world was R’s oyster. He no longer cared for being confined to a stroller or held in someone’s arms. With the ability to propel his own body forward, he could now go where HE wanted to go to see the things that HE wanted to see. Shopping malls, parks, the grocery store parking lot and our own front yard became meccas for his exploration and exercises in terror for me when he would wander too far away. I wanted to run after him, scoop him up and keep him close to me.

One day several months ago, I took R to an empty parking lot with the intention of teaching him to ride his bike without training wheels. He insisted that I absolutely not let go of the seat of his bike. He even made me promise that I wouldn’t let go before he would agree to pedal forward. Dutifully, I held on to the seat while he wobbled along, painfully slow, trying to find his center of gravity. I noticed that the tighter I held on to his bike seat, the wobblier the bike became. When I loosened my grip and rested my hand lightly on the seat, R adjusted his weight so that he was centered on the bike and pedaled forward smoothly. After several rounds of practice, R’s riding had improved so much that I was having trouble keeping up with him to hold on to the back of the seat at all. I let go, and he took off across the parking lot, pedaling as fast as his little legs would allow him. At some point, he realized I wasn’t behind him, looked back to see where I was, and crashed.

Of course, he was really mad at me, and reminded me repeatedly of my promise. Looking sullenly at his scraped knees and hands, he insisted that he was never going to learn how to ride a bike. I reminded him that he WAS riding his bike until he stopped, but that we could pack his bike up and go home now if he didn’t want to ride anymore. (Never challenge a kid who likes a good challenge by implying that he CAN’T do something.) Twenty minutes later, R was flying across the parking lot while I cheered him on. I was thrilled that he had come so far in one afternoon, but as I watched his retreating figure grow tinier and tinier, a little voice in my heart wanted to shout, “Too far, come back to me!”

Tomorrow, J and I will drop R off at the doors of his elementary school and watch him as he makes his way into the gymnasium to join his kindergarten class. I will stand there with other mothers of ingoing kindergartners (We’ll be the ones with runny eyeliner, clutching fistfuls of Kleenex like security blankets). Amidst the excited commotion of a new school year, alongside sixth graders who will be twice his size, and under the supervision of what I believe will be a delightfully fun, but firm teacher, R will begin a new journey that will take him a little farther from us.

Parenting is a constant cycle of holding on and letting go, of pushing forward and pulling back. Sometimes the lessons are painful, and sometimes they are triumphant. I guess the best we can hope for is that our kids know that we will stay constant, so that when they need to look back and find us, we will be right where they left us.

So, here’s to a new beginning and 13 years of science fair projects, field trip permission slips, and finding out at 11 o’clock the night before the school chili feed that your kid was supposed to ask you to bake 6 dozen brownies.

Perspectives

It’s been one week since the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial was decided. J and I were out with friends to celebrate his birthday when the verdict was announced. I was on my way to the restroom of a crowded venue when I heard shouting and glanced up at a TV mounted on the ceiling to see Zimmerman’s face and the word “acquitted.” I will admit that my first thought was that there might be rioting, much like what occurred in L.A. after the Rodney King case was announced in 1992. I hurried on to the restroom to be on the safe side. Over the past week, I have read commentary and watched interviews from both sides, seen long diatribes on Facebook outlining people’s reactions, and discussed the case with family and friends.

This case has captivated many because it is so multifaceted. Issues of race, age, character, and the rights of gun owners were thrust into the spotlight. As I followed this case in the aftermath of the verdict, it struck me that one conversation that seems to be missing is our ability as human beings to look at a situation from a perspective outside of our own life experiences. As a nation, we have become less empathetic toward one another in exchange for a false sense of security. When I think too long on this, it distresses me to imagine the kind of society we are leaving for future citizens of this country, including my own children.

As a mother, I feel compassion for any woman who has ever lost her child, but especially for mothers who have lost children unexpectedly and to violence. To have invested all of your love and energy to this life, and then to have that life taken by another would be truly devastating.

I can never know what it feels like to be a young, black man in the United States walking alone at night in a predominately white neighborhood. But I do know what it’s like to be a woman walking alone at night in a rough neighborhood. Gripping car keys between tensed fingers, always anticipating what’s around the next corner, heart thumping in ears, the constant urge to turn around and see what’s behind you. I grew up with cautionary tales of girls and women who had been overpowered, violated, or left for dead. Every news story about sexual violence and every date rape episode of Law & Order reminded us that the world could be a dangerous place to be female. If I had grown up listening to the Rodney King story or felt like I was under a cloud of suspicion every time I wore a hoodie, I might feel the need to defend myself if someone approached me in the dark to ask me what I was doing. I’ll never know for sure, but I can imagine it. That’s part of our humanity; being able to imagine what an experience must be like for someone else.

I find it interesting that the characters of both Zimmerman and Martin have been so thoroughly dissected by the general public. Neither man would have been in the running for sainthood, but I know very few adults or teenagers who are perfect. Their characters, beyond what happened the night of the run-in, seem irrelevant to me. As a former high school teacher, I once taught a first hour English class in which I am fairly certain ¾ of the students were high each morning. These were low-to-middle income white and Native American students from a rural area. While I don’t condone the use of illicit drugs, marijuana is not associated with increased aggression, so unless we are trying to prove that Martin was doing something that many of his adolescent peers try at one time or another, I really don’t think we have proven much.

Zimmerman had lawfully applied for and obtained a firearm, and according to the laws of his state, had the legal right to carry it and defend himself. Feeling threatened, Zimmerman produced his firearm and shot. There’s a reason that when individuals enter into careers in law enforcement, they are required to have extensive training in conflict resolution, mediation, and acceptable situations in which to discharge a firearm under extreme emotional stress. As far as I’m aware, there are no such demands put on individuals who are applying for permits to carry. As a citizen of this country, I’m not comfortable with the idea that the average layperson has the skills necessary to make decisions under extreme emotional stress whose consequences have such potentially grave outcomes. That certainly seemed to be the case in this situation, as it was later discovered that Martin was unarmed.

While many will disagree, it’s my assertion that this is the failure of a society, which in its attempts to feel secure in a post-9/11 era, has created a monster by loosening gun control policies. Like an overzealous parent, intent on protecting their offspring, we have created a nation that is anxious, suspicious, and quick to react. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Like the liberty to allow your 17-year-old to walk to the Quick Shop for a snack without getting shot.)

If I leave out matters of race, personal character, and gun control, this case boils down to one thing for me: Trayvon Martin was not an angel, but he was an unarmed, 17-year-old kid. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and predict that there aren’t many of us (myself included) who can say that we always thought clearly or made good decisions at 17. George Zimmerman was a 28-year-old man who had undertaken the responsibility of owning a potentially lethal weapon. That kind of responsibility should dictate that when a 911 dispatcher tells you to get back into your car and go home, that the police are on their way, and there is no imminent bodily threat, you do it. You don’t get out of your car and follow the person of concern on a misguided vigilante mission. If Zimmerman had acted with the kind of maturity I expect from someone allowed to carry a loaded weapon, Trayvon Martin would be alive today.

It’s important to me that J and I raise R and K to be the kind of people who have empathy for others. When they’ve hurt someone, we ask, “How would you feel if…?” We try to teach them to look at situations from many perspectives before making rash judgments, even if those perspectives are outside of their personal experiences. We ask, “What would it be like to…?” I wonder what the world would be like if more adults asked themselves these same questions.

The Family Vacation

Long the hallmark of the middle class, the family vacation provides hard-working men and women a week each year to focus exclusively on making memories with their spouses and offspring. Without the distractions of texts, e-mails, bills, work or school, moms and dads set out to provide memorable, enriching life experiences that their children can carry into adulthood and reflect upon fondly in coming years. Suitcases (or, as R calls them “case suits”) are packed, itineraries are made, and mail is stopped.

Each February, I turn to my husband and ask him where he would like to go on vacation for a week in the summer. “Somewhere close” is usually his reply. (One has to wonder about the person who first decided that confining family members to a space the size of a Johnny on the Job and driving several hours was the recipe for relaxation and domestic harmony.)

Amidst flying snowflakes and subzero temperatures, usually while nursing a head cold, I eagerly research hotel rooms, cabins, or condominiums and dream of warm summer nights and walking hand-in-hand along a shoreline. Our children, dressed in white, K with a pinafore and bow in her hair, skip ahead of us looking for shells or pinecones or other treasures of nature. The temperature is always a perfect 76 degrees in my fantasy, and we seem to be the only people present in our vacation sanctuary.

Returned from an actual week of vacationing with my family, I have come to the conclusion that reality is the nail in the coffin of expectations. Don’t get me wrong. There are moments from this vacation that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Last year, K was still too young to interact in a meaningful way with her brother. This year, they delighted in plotting against us from the backseat. (Think repeated singing of playground songs and crude noises made by the mouth.) They reveled in discovering new places and seeing things they hadn’t seen before (like the inside of a cave. Evidently, bat poop is endlessly fascinating.) And when I’m an old woman, the image of two happy, smiling faces jumping into my outstretched arms from the side of a swimming pool will sustain me. To quote J, “It seems like we always come away with great memories, but sometimes it’s just so dang stressful.”

Last summer we chose a vacation destination that required us to cross three states and drive approximately 13-hours. That experience fresh in our minds, we decided to stick closer to home and drive east to a popular vacation destination about 5 hours away. R took advantage of his close back seat proximity to his sister to enhance her toddler vocabulary. The “Can You Say?” game took off from the start and was mutually entertaining for both kids. Our not-yet-two-year-old can now utter such helpful conversational phrases as “I farted” and “Where is your butt?” (R’s success rate is even better than Rosetta Stone, which promises that you will be conversationally proficient in a language of your choice in as little as five lessons.)

When they tired of the “Can You Say?” game, R turned to his old standby, tormenting his sister by holding things just out of her reach, and then mocking her when she cried. J and I shut this down quickly by distributing snacks and crayons, which K promptly spilled all over. (I recently found violet lodged in a crack in the console, oddly warped by the July heat.) K also decided that vacation was the perfect time to reveal her intense aversion to wearing shoes, so that I lived in perpetual fear that we were going to leave strays at every rest stop along the way.

Like Lucy and Ethel, Abbott and Costello, Bert and Ernie, and Thelma and Louise (okay, bad example), J and I each play a role when it comes to vacation transportation. I’m terrible at reading maps and giving directions and prefer to drive, while J revels in finding the best, most direct route to our destination. Most of the time, this division of responsibility works well, J calling out directions, me turning left here, merging onto a highway there. As all couples that have travelled together know, even the most solid relationships can bend under the strain of heavy traffic, whining children, and lack of sleep.

My husband is the king of the imaginary brake pedal. If he has even an inkling that you might not see the gigantic semi idling at the stoplight in front of you and brake soon enough to avoid hitting it, he will brake for you. Early in our marriage, I found this charming. It was almost a reflex, like he was involuntarily programmed to keep us safe. Seven years in, I find his sudden foot and knee flexing to be a silent commentary on my driving abilities. That, along with his charming habit of leaning slightly to one side or the other in an effort to guide the car where he thinks it should be going, has led to many choruses of “Would you like to drive?”

This year, I booked a condo with two full bedrooms and two full baths. Sharing a hotel room with two small children means that J and I either have to go to bed at 10 PM or keep the kids up and deal with the consequences the next day. When we discussed these reservations back in February, I pictured us putting the kids to bed side-by-side in one of the spacious king-sized beds, and then having time to relax and have grown-up discussion before we headed off to bed in the second room. As it turns out, kids don’t sleep well alone in strange places, even when they have each other. J ended up occupying one of the king-sized beds while I awoke each morning to R’s bony knee in my ribs and cries of “I pottied Mama!” from K.

I love to document our family travels through pictures, and we have albums full of vacation photographs, first as a couple, and then with R as a grinning toddler, and now the four of us. What I’ve noticed is that not unlike my February fantasy vacations, I tend to photograph the idyllic moments, when everyone is smiling for the camera, as if to prove that this vacation was perfect. This year, I decided to bring out the journalist in myself, dust her off, and strive to capture the truth (good, bad or ugly). Here are a few of the highlights:

-A charming photo of K, on her back on the ground, kicking her feet because her mini-golf ball had to be returned to the clubhouse at the end of the game.

-R melting down on the floor of a conservation center because he was ready to go on the hike we promised and tired of all the “boring” stuff we wanted to look at.

-K pouting in front of a wooden ship’s wheel because she wanted to have complete control over turning it, as her brother stands in the background smiling.

-After an hour of getting everyone ready to go mini-golfing, buckled in, equipment rented and paid for, train taken to get to hole #1, the skies opened up and a torrential downpour of rain soaking the four of us as we scrambled to get back to the car.

-R’s tear-stained, powder sugar-covered face, comparing the amount of funnel cake he got to the amount everyone else got (despite the fact that he ate ¾ of it).

-My husband, looking dazed, as if he has just walked out of a combat zone as he struggles to fold the stroller and load it onto the tram after a long day at an amusement park.

When the photos came back a couple of weeks after our return, I flipped through them, recalled the stories that went with each, smiled, and turned to J.

“What a great vacation! Where do you want to go next year?”

A New Kind of Clean

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Before I had children, I spent one morning each weekend cleaning my house. I would de-clutter, dust, vacuum, do laundry, scrub, and polish. When I finished, I’d look around and marvel at the general order of my life. I basked in the glow of an entirely clean house. When R was born, I tried to keep up with my pre-child standards of cleanliness and soon found the practice to be discouraging, but accomplishable. By the time K came along, I found it to be downright impossible.

The problem is, as soon as one room has been cleaned to my satisfaction, I look behind me and find that my children have not sat idly by while I strived for cleaning perfection. Instead, they have dumped an entire bucket of Legos in the middle of the living room floor and strewn half-naked dolls down the hallway, their underutilized clothes lagging behind them.

Better Homes and Gardens and HGTV rarely feature glossy photos or spotlight homes decorated with The Avengers action figures and varying shades of Disney-princess pink. Not once have they addressed how to arrange light sabers on your living room couch for maximum impact. In fact, the houses they feature must not be occupied by anyone under the age of 21 (or anyone who actually likes to EAT at a dining room table for that matter, because seriously, who actually has time to put napkin rings on cloth napkins?)

I’ve reached a new stage of acceptance though, and now realize that my entire house will never be simultaneously clean again. Instead, I spot clean (this usually happens when something in the house gets so messy or cluttered that I snap). For example, when I can no longer find the kitchen counter to slice an apple, it’s time to sort through the mail, art projects, tools and toys that have accumulated there. (My husband tends to keep his distance when I fall into one of these moods, lest he be unwillingly recruited. He’s a wise man.)

Good Housekeeping magazine has a featured column each month that lists the “best” way to clean something, and also the “good enough” method for the same task. I really took to this idea the first time I saw it. I think it appeals to my perfectionistic side, while also acknowledging reality. So, I’ve decided to try my hand at it. Let’s call this the “BEFORE KIDS” method vs. the “AFTER KIDS” method:

LAUNDRY

BK:  Laundry days were Wednesday night and Saturday morning. All laundry was collected, washed, dried, and folded while enjoying favorite television shows. Laundry was then promptly put into dresser drawers and linen closets and clean towels were hung in the bathrooms. Iron-able items were creased, pressed, and hung in closets.

AK:  Laundry days are whenever someone complains that they’ve run out of clean underwear. Also, how many times can a load of wrinkled clothes be run through the permanent press cycle before you absolutely must take them out and fold them? If your kid wants a particular article of clothing and it’s 10 o’clock the night before they need said article, is it acceptable to pull it from the bottom of their laundry hamper, check for stains, not find any, and then throw it in the dryer with a wet washcloth and a dryer sheet to “fluff” it up? (Not that I have ever done this.) Iron-ables? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

BATHROOMS

BK:  Bathrooms were cleaned every other weekend unless it was deemed that they needed additional attention on weeks off. Clean counters, mirrors, toilet, and tub. Vacuum up lint and hair and mop bathroom floors. Polish fixtures with a paper towel so they are shiny. Empty wastebasket.

AK: Bathrooms are cleaned when I can no longer stand the sight of them. Quickly wipe counters off with a piece of toilet paper. Check around toilet for pee stains. (SIDE NOTE: If a woman can accurately polish her pinkie toenail with a tiny nail polish brush without getting any polish on her toe, why can’t a five-year-old boy hit the inside of a 1-foot wide opening in a toilet seat while he’s standing directly over it? Mothers of boys, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about here.) Wipe toothpaste spit splatters off of ceiling (How does that stuff get up there?!)

TOYS

BTK (Before two kids): “There’s a place for everything, and everything in its place” was my motto. I attempted to buy tubs and organizing systems. At first, we tried to sort all of the kids’ toys out so that pieces of sets stayed together. After all, the world would come to a halting stop if Trio blocks were mixed in with KiNEx pieces.

ATK:  In our attempts to get everyone into bed before the 10 o’clock news anthem starts, we have resorted to just throwing things into toy boxes and bins and letting them fall where they will. You can imagine the scandal when Shredder spent the night in the same tub with Cinderella.

DUST

BK:  Dust all surfaces at least once per week. Pick up objects on top of surfaces and dust those as well.

AK: Dust builds up healthy immune systems, right?


BED MAKING
BK: I loved the crisp feeling of hospital-corner sheets and the sight of duvet covers and pillow shams before falling into bed at night.

AK:  Check to make sure I'm not going to be eviscerated by the spiky tail of a plastic dinosaur who got lodged between the sheet and comforter before falling into bed at night.


Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk while it's still snowing.  ~Phyllis Diller

The Diet Plan

Last summer, K was too young to understand the concept of ice cream. If it was just she and I running errands, I could stop by the DQ or get some frozen yogurt, and she was blissfully content to watch as I spooned creamy deliciousness into my mouth, none-the-wiser as to what she was missing. I will admit that even in recent months, I have taken advantage of the fact that her car seat is still rear facing and quietly consumed a frozen treat out of her eyesight. (All mothers have done this at one time or another.) However, this chapter is quickly coming to an end, replaced by a cry for “I kem! I kem!” if we even pass within several yards of a Dairy Queen sign. (Maybe that’s a sign I should lay off the “I kem.”)

A couple of nights ago, I was sharing a cup of chocolate and peanut butter with her. I took a bite, and then spooned a bite into her mouth. We went on like this for several minutes. A bite for Mommy. A bite for K. She was really getting into the pattern and began opening her mouth as soon as I had consumed my preliminary bite. As she was chewing a particularly large spoonful, I took two bites in a row. She raised her tiny index finger, looked at me from under scowling eyebrows, and screeched, “No Mommy!” Kind of like this:

I think I’ll call it the “I-HAVE-A-TODDLER-WHO-NOTICES-EVERYTHING-PLAN.” I’ll let you know how it works.