Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

If you're planning on visiting the state of Maine anytime soon, bring your foul weather gear, a rowboat, and some towels.  It has been raining here -- sometimes torrentially -- for more than 48 hours.  In fact, it's much like that scene in Forrest Gump where he's fighting in Vietnam and remarking on all the different types, strengths, and directions of rain he encounters during his combat tour.  Minus the rice paddies and the war paraphernalia. 

Yes, the hallmark of the past weekend was plain old wetness. I'm not even sure that "wetness" was a noun before this weekend, but it certainly is one now. The satellite imagery of our state just shows a large, unmoving green blob, with said blob representing gushing rain.  And according to the sadistic weatherman I listened to during my drive to work, the earliest we're going to see the sun in these here parts is Wednesday.  Reminder: today is Monday.

There's nothing better than having every outdoor activity condemned by Mother Nature when you have two young children and one antsy husband. 

Check that.  Everything is better than the above scenario.

Given my limited range of activity over the weekend, I took the time to jot down some of the conversations (both internal and external) we had during our forced quarantine.  Enjoy.

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ME:  Won't this be so nice?  We can spend some quality time indoors playing games, baking, being creative, and just getting back to family basics.  Plus, there are all those chores I've been trying to find time to get done, and this monsoon provides the perfect opportunity to focus on those.  This is just great.  Tupperware drawer?  Here.  I.  Come!

MYSELF: You are highly over-estimating your stamina, motivation, and imagination and dangerously under-estimating the needs of your offspring, the energy of your spouse, and the number of minutes you are about to spend inside your small house.  Good luck.  Idiot.

**********

ME: Who's up for chutes & ladders?!?

4-year-old daughter: I want a treat! 

ME:  It's 9 in the morning, you wouldn't eat breakfast, and we're concentrating on bonding right now.  Would you rather do a puzzle?

Daughter: I would rather eat a treat!  T-R-E-A-T!

ME: Here's a treat: your mother's undivided attention.  Now, shall we break out a new pack of finger paints?

Daughter: That's insulting.  I am not following you down that dead-end street.  My focus is undivided, my object is clear.  Give me a treat or I'll give you my fury.

ME: Hey, look!  Your princesses are talking!  They're telling me they want to play with us too!

Daughter: Not going to work, mother.  I will not be distrac -- hey!  There's the lollipop I didn't finish in February!  Right here where I left it in the dollhouse!

ME:  I said we're BONDING!  Now put down the frigging lollipop and be cute!

**********

ME: What would YOU like to do during your special mommy-and-me time?

8-month-old son: I would like you to watch me stick things in my mouth.  Like that knife.  Or that hammer.  Or the multiple plastic rings my sister has in her room.  Which would be more fun for you?

ME: How about we skip the choking hazards and concentrate on more wholesome diversions.  Wanna sit up and clap?

Son: I'm going to take that offer and add it to my diaper.  Try this on for size.  Put me on your bed.  You know, the elevated one with no prison bars.  Leave me there unattended.  Let's just see what happens.  I promise not to roll over....more than thrice.

ME: I'd prefer your first sky-diving expedition to include a parachute, professionals, and the urn containing my ashes.  Do you want to bang some plastic cups together?

Son:  What's....that....over...there?  Let....me.... creep....over....and....SUCCESS!  Papi's flip-flop!

ME:  Did you just....??  Was that just.....?  Did you just show the first signs of someone who is going to crawl sooner rather than later?  NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

**********

ME:  Time for grocery shopping!  We'll pretend we're Dora and explore for dry spots as we sprint from the car to the store.  Fun fun fun!!!

Daughter:  Can I bring my singing globe and my Barbie computer?

ME:  Sure!  Great car entertainment for the drive over!

Daughter: No.  I want to bring them in the store WITH me. 

ME:  Oh.  Okay....

Son:  And I'd prefer not to get soaked during this sure-fire disaster of an outing.  Could you rig some sort of contraption over my car seat using multiple blankets, an over-sized rain coat, and perhaps some plastic baggies?

ME:  That sounds cumbersome.  Couldn't you just --

Son:  I will not negotiate this point.  You're the one who could have sprung for an actual, waterproof cover for my car seat.  You chose not to.  This was your destiny.  Not mine.

ME:  Point taken.  I should have no problem juggling you, your 50-pound car seat covered in new layers of material, your 30-pound sister who refuses to walk, her bulky toys, and the pile of reusable bags.  I'm sure there will be open parking spots near the store entrance.  It really shouldn't be that far of a walk.  This will all go really well.

MYSELF:  I.d.i.o.t.

**********

ME:  Honey?  I'm kind of out of games and local errands.  Do you want to do a story-time with me?  Or take Daughter to see a movie?  Or plug that hair-dryer into the outdoor outlet, position me under the drainage spout, and play catch?

HUSBAND: What?  I can't hear you!

ME:  That's because you're working outside in the middle of Noah's Revenge and I'm shouting at you from the porch.  I know the chicken coop needs to be finished, but couldn't you just --

HUSBAND:  Speak UP!  Can't you see the geysers shooting sideways out of my ears?  Also, could you wipe off my glasses?  They're so foggy!  I haven't seen anything out of them in about 3 hours.

ME:  HOW ABOUT AFTER LUNCH YOU TAKE DAUGHTER TO THE LIBRARY?

HUSBAND:  Can't!  Have azaleas to plant! 

**********

ME:  Honey?  Remember that little stream or creek or sewage slurpie that runs alongside our house?  It's kind of almost overflowing.  Should we be concerned or buying sand bags?

....

ME:  Honey?  That little stream or creek or sewage slurpie is now kind of a raging river.  Should we call the Maine tourism board or its equivalent and list our yard as an attraction?  I think that's what white water river rafters look at and think "vacation!"

....

ME:  Honey?  That little stream or creek or sewage slurpie is now kind of a boiling witch's cauldron.  And...hey!  Call the cops!  Someone is white water river rafting down our yard! 

HUSBAND:  Hey, great!  I'll call the cops as soon as I make a kayak out of that birch bark I've been saving and the left over wood chips!  I've always wanted to see how it feels to have raging floodwaters underneath me.  This is my Man versus Wild moment!  I can finally understand what Bear Grylls felt like all those times he was wearing bear skin and eating poisonous mushrooms.  This is the best weekend ever!!!!!!!

ME:  I strongly disagree. 

Before the Parade Passes By

The older I get, the more I despise certain holidays and appreciate others.  On the "more despise" list are New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day.  On the "more appreciate" list is Memorial Day.  All the others currently occupy the same place on my emotional reactionary radar as they always have.  I will keep you posted if any move up or down in my rankings. 

This is kind of the same type of enjoyment you get from hearing about NFL power rankings.  I know.

Memorial Day is sneaky in its awesomeness.  Everyone has a vague sense of its meaning: honor the people who have fought to keep this country the type of place where a woman can decide if she wants to vote into the presidency a man who happens to be black.  But no one quite understands what makes Memorial Day remarkably different from Veterans' Day, other than that the former is in May and the latter is in November.  Everyone looks forward to the long weekend Memorial Day affords, but no one expects a card or a present to mark the occasion.  It's a holiday that asks little of its celebrants while recognizing those who sacrificed a lot.

Therein lies the awesomeness.  When's the last time you ever had a to-do list associated with Memorial Day?  Never.  What's the last Memorial Day gift you stressed over?  You don't have an answer, because that's a trick question.  Who's the last relative you dreaded coming over for the big Memorial Day meal?  No one, because on Memorial Day, you only have to be with the people you choose to be with.

And when's the last time you took a moment or two or ten to think about the guys and gals that wake up in the morning to a pang of homesickness and a knot of worry about whether the day will bring a roadside bomb or a downed helicopter or a surprise Joe Biden pep talk?  Hopefully yesterday is your answer.  But before yesterday, your answer was probably Veterans' Day 2011.

So on Memorial Day you go to a parade in the morning and you give the smallest thanks in the history of thanking in relation to the gift you've received.  You clap at the uniforms, cheer for the bands, and maybe tear up at the speech or the singing of the national anthem.

Then you go home and you fire up the grill.  You see some friends.  You get a sun burn.  You keep forgetting it's Monday.  You watch some basketball.  You go to sleep.

Thank you, armed forces of all generations.  You do the hard and dirty work and only ask for a parade and a burger in return.  Sure makes Jesus look like a pretty demanding guy.

Yesterday, we celebrated in high Memorial Day fashion.  I dressed my kids in red, white and blue.  My husband, mother and I took them to our town's parade.  We waved the little American flags the parade hosts were passing out to the 200 or so people lining the parade route...which spans about a quarter of a mile.

Needless to say, our town's parade is quaint out of one eye and kind of a let-down out of the other.  The attendees are either families like mine, with young children, or our town's oldest citizens.  In fact, Memorial Day may be the one day of the year that older set breaths natural air.  It makes for a somewhat odd mix along the parade route.  The younger set is ferociously prowling for the free candy, and the older set is maintaining a strict proximity to the ambulance camped out on the corner.

This year's parade lasted about 7 minutes.  Less than the time it takes me to check out of the grocery store.  Here's the breakdown:

• Minute 1: 8 old fashioned cars driven by old fashioned humans
• Minute 2: 1 old fashioned sleigh or something driven by grandma and mama, who spent most of her time making sure her daughter (holding a pail for some reason) doesn't fall off
• Minute 3: 1 girl on a unicycle holding the hand of 1 gullible friend
• Minute 3:30: 3 make-shift "floats" with metal folding chairs, on which sit veterans from unidentified wars waving nervously as the "float" lists and creaks
• Minute 4: 1 team of spelling bee contestants lugging their purple-spangled trophy in a red metal wagon
• Minute 5: 1 cluster of volunteer firefighters, followed by 1 firetruck
• Minute 6: 80 highly-embarrassed high schoolers pretending to be a marching band and playing the exact same song that faux-band has played at this event since 1983
• Minute 7: 133 6-10 year-olds, plus their parents, wearing their Little League uniforms and carrying sagging bags of candy

Not surprisingly, but perhaps inappropriately, it's the last group that really gets the crowd riled up.  Everyone was quietly oohing at the old cars and scratching their heads at the unicyclist and the spelling bee cluster.  The band elicited lots of "poor things" comments.  The actual veterans got polite claps and waves.  But the Little Leaguers.  Boy oh boy.  It was as if Harry Potter were giving a piggy-back to Justin Bieber while he read the Hunger Games.  The young portion of the crowd erupted in squeals and extended hands that looked like a greedy version of a politically incorrect hand salute.  The hysteria of mere dozens of sugar-jonesing youngsters is a thing to behold.

Not to brag, but I had anticipated the hysteria-wave.  To be frank, the previous 6 minutes of the parade had been something of a snooze.  I had talked up the parade big-time.  Even invited another family to come with us.  And up until the Little Leaguers, it had inspired the same degree of patriotism that cutting a "Made in Taiwan" label off your t-shirt does.  I felt responsible for the let-down, but figured I might have a chance of salvaging the morning with the whole candy thing. 

When I saw the arrival of the polyester uniforms on the horizon, I got my pack of candy-eaters ready.  I put them front and center on the curb.  I showed them how to make grabby fists.  I screamed "this is what we came here for!  Make me proud!"  And I waited for it to rain dum-dums.

Well, there was a barrage of sugar, but it didn't make it to the sidelines of the parade, as any decent barrage of sugar should.  Instead, those wily Little Leaguers were simply THROWING THE CANDY AT EACH OTHER.  Those kindergartners and 3rd graders snatched their caps off their heads and started filling them with the Swedish Fish that the Pizza Pirates were throwing, or the nerds that the Wal-Mart Walruses were underhanding.  My assembled preschoolers watched on in increasing panic and horror.

It was right about the time my daughter reached for a jawbreaker and had it ripped out of her hands by someone wielding a catcher's mitt that I did it.  I jumped into the oncoming traffic of the slow-moving parade, spied a lollipop shaped like a princess castle, and went for it.  Just as I began to smoosh my son in the Baby Bjorn to reach down to grab what was rightfully mine, a 4-foot-thief came in to steal it.  Like any mature woman and mother would do, I STUCK MY FOOT OUT AND STEPPED ON THE TREAT SO HE COULDN'T TAKE IT.  Like some kid at a birthday party fighting for the pinata innards.

I woke from my trance only when my husband screamed out, over the din, "Abby!  What in Christ are you doing?!?"

I looked up, wiped the drool from my lip, and shame-facedly resumed my position on the curb. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you respect Memorial Day.  You take a perfectly good day and act like the worst version of yourself so that the heroes you're celebrating can feel that much better about themselves. 

In spite of myself, I still had a great day. 

See?  Memorial Day is indestructibly awesome.

Dear Abby: How Will I Know?

It's Week Two of the Dear Abby extravaganza!   Why don't you take a few minutes to kick your feet up and give this a little read before you hop in the car to sit in traffic for six hours?  I'm pretty sure hamburgers taste as good at your destination as they do in your own backyard, so there's no need to rush into National Bar-B-Que Weekend.  And posts like this only come along once in a blue...um, week.

Last week, we explored mom-on-mom cannibalism in all its over-hyped, under-rationalized glory.  This week, we're going to put the proverbial horse before the proverbial cart and muse on another reader's question:

How do I (and my wife) know when we're ready to have kids?

Even if you know, at some basic level, that you want to have kids someday, the question of when someday becomes today is a big one.  In fact, I think it is The Big Question of most people's lives.  I'm not the first to point out that having a child is the one decision you cannot un-make.  You can transfer schools, leave a job, divorce a spouse, sell a house, and send your entree back.  But once that baby comes into the world, you will be forever defined as a parent.  You may be a good parent or a bad parent or a helicopter parent or an absent parent.  Whatever kind of parent you are, the point is you're a parent.  Switch the adjective, absorb the noun.

I think we can all agree that, if I've achieved anything thus far in the post, I've now sent today's questioner and others like him searching for the nearest paper bag.  In the distance, I can hear someone screaming, "I know I'm supposed to be taking this shit seriously, but did you have to go and turn up the volume?!?"  Yes, in fact.  I did.  It's called an INTRODUCTION. 

In my mind's eye, I had always seen myself with children.  I hoped for two, and hoped to have them when I was relatively young.  Once I became an attorney working insane hours, though, I started to wonder when I was going to be able to fit a baby into the frenetic pace of my life...and into my small Manhattan apartment.  I distinctly remember boarding the 6 train at the 86th Street station to head south to my office one morning and being hit with a wave of nervous confusion.  Don't ask me why, but at that very early hour on a muggy summer morning, I was consumed with a single question: when am I ever going to be ready to become a mother?

I soon resolved that I was going to stop thinking about it, because it was so out of the realm of possibility for my husband and I at the time.  Both of us were working at a grueling pace, we had little to no disposable income, and we had still only been married for a short time.

A couple years later, something great happened.  Well, great for me, not so great for those hoping I can shed some light on the baby-timing dilemma.  The great-for-me thing was that all of a sudden, something in me just clicked.  I powerfully and clearly and absolutely felt the need, the urge, the pure desire to have a baby.  And guess what?  The feeling first struck when I was taking the exact same subway commute as I'd been taking when I first felt so utterly whacked out by the whole proposition.  Bizarrely poetic.  Or just bizarre.  (Or statistically not so interesting, given the amount of mornings I commuted to work on the 6 train.)

I didn't question the feeling, just like I had somehow convinced myself not to obsess over my previous confusion. 

I don't think my husband ever felt a similar impulse on the issue.  When I told him about mine, he listened with a certain tinge of fear in his eyes, but it didn't take too long for him to get on board.

Given my story, when people ask me how I knew I was ready, my response is completely unhelpful: I just knew.

Maybe that's not so unhelpful, actually.  The lesson there is that life or biology or your subconscious or whatever can be trusted to throw you a bone.  Even though it's a huge question, the answer may come from as simple a place as your gut.  I can tell you that I trusted mine, and it worked for me.

On the other hand, maybe you're keeping my first response in the "unhelpful" column.  You want more concrete analysis from someone who's been on both sides of the decision.  For you, I present some practical considerations that I think can help you determine if you're ready for some company.  Of the 7-pound, 21-inch, no hair or musculature variety. 

1.  Do you have the money?

This is a crass and perhaps unsentimental place to start, but you discarded my whole "trust your gut" approach, so I'm thinking practicality is your thing.  There's nothing more practical than coming to terms with the fact that babies are expensive.  So are the kids that babies grow up to be.  Being pregnant means an entirely new wardrobe for mom.  I'm talking top-to-bottom wardrobe here, from undergarments to shoes.  Plus all the hats for the days mom is too tired or nauseous to do her hair.  The hospital stay for birthing the baby will cost thousands of dollars.  Then all the baby gear.  The diapers, the wipes, the onesies, the spit-up cloths, the crib, the changing table, the rocking chair.  And those are just the basics.  People will tell you that you need a stroller that costs more than your rent, a bottle warmer, a wipes warmer, multiple ointments and creams, every outfit you ever see in a baby-store window, and every variation of pillow.  I can tell you that you actually need none of those things, but you won't believe me.  You should just take an honest look at your finances and answer for yourself: can I afford every variation of Sophie the Giraffe, that cover for the shopping cart, and the sheep that makes noises to put my kid in a catatonic trance?  If the answer is no, maybe you should hold off.  If the answer is that you don't believe in providing for the comforts of others, maybe you should get a fish and walk away from the baby idea for good.

2.  Do you have the space?

When a little bundle of joy first arrives, the only free space really required is a bassinet for sleeping, a flat surface for diaper changing, and your front torso for holding.  Then that bundle morphs into a more three-dimensional object and starts doing things like rolling over and crawling and teetering and tottering and walking.  Then that three-dimensional object morphs into a tornado and spends years running, hiding, and jumping.  Usually when you're trying to get them dressed.

So you're gonna need some space.  For the little person itself, and also for all that gear I mentioned above.  If you live at the L.A.'s Staples Center or one of the homes Brad & Angie are not currently using, then you can skip this step.  You're fine on space.

Otherwise, consider the following.  When we lived in Manhattan, my daughter's stroller was forced to serve both as a baby vehicle and as a piece of furniture -- it was so big relative to our tiny "foyer" that we had no choice but to hang coats on it and store snacks in it.  You're going to need to be able to dedicate sections of your counter-space and shelves of your cabinets to bottles, baby food, teething crackers, formula, and every cardboard box with a Sesame Street character on it that your local grocery store sells.  Your bathtub needs to be able to contain hundreds of plastic water toys.  And no one has more swag than your kid.  It's like the world is their personal gift shop.  You're going to need some storage space.

3.  Do you have the mindset?

While money is important and space is helpful, I think there is no bigger hurdle to be sure you can jump than "mindset."  You can lie to yourself about your earning potential and about the shabby chicness of your kid sleeping on a dog bed in your living room/dining room/kitchen, but now is the time for brutal honesty.  Don't mess with yourself on this one.  You've got to be able to handle your own truth.

I'm going to tell you some things that come with the territory of being a parent.  It's impossible for you to ask yourself now if you're ready for any of these, because no one is ever "ready" for them.  What you need to ask yourself is: "Am I dry-heaving, breaking out in hives, or doing my unattractive cry when I think about any of the following?"  If you are having these or similar bodily reactions to the upcoming list, congratulations, you're the lucky winner of an easy answer: now's not the time for you to have kids.

Being a parent means, in part and in no particular order:

• Never eating an entire meal sitting down or empty-handed.
• Having to plan for every possibility - wet diaper, dirty diaper, bored child, thirsty child, hungry child, child with a cold, child with dirty hands, child with a friend with a cold or dirty hands, car-jacking, apocalypse (the last two might be unique to me) -- every time you leave the house.
• Sleeping soundly only from 9:00PM to 9:45PM.  On Tuesdays.
• Lying a lot.  White lies, but still lies.  Because there are only so many ways to try to rationalize with a toddler about why "all the toys" can't come home with us.
• Never going to see a movie again.
• Answering questions about things you never knew could prompt a question.
• Becoming a doctor.  You're the one who has to figure out why your 3-month-old is crying hysterically, how to soothe the gums of a teething baby, whether the tick had embedded or not, if that's a temper tantrum or paranormal activity, and where on the spectrum of actual injury an invisible gash to the knee falls. 
• Getting comfortable with saying words like "boo boo," "potty," "listening ears," "cooperating time," and "don't make me say it again."
• Becoming an actor.  Because the public cannot see or guess at the embarrassment/fury you're containing as your daughter strips naked, smacks you in the face, and yells "I'M NOT READY TO LEAVE!" when you tell her church is over.
• Watching Aladdin every night for three months and realizing that if you were given one wish from a genie, it'd be for a weekend.  A real one. 
• Never sitting still.  Unless it's because it's 9:00PM on a Tuesday and you're sleeping.

I'm hoping these are helpful, but I'm guessing your Siskel & Ebert review is somewhere in the neighborhood of one middle finger, all the way up. 

I'm sorry.  There's no easy answer. 

Except the trust your gut one.

Now, are you free to babysit? 

Submit your idea or suggestion for a "Dear Abby" post by emailing me at abbysblog@rocketmail.com. All the other, intricate details of this something-for-everyone are explained here.

Where Have All The Weekends Gone?

Even back when I was working at a law firm, I looked forward to the weekends.  I say "even" because on most of those weekends, I was going to be doing at least a few hours of work.  And often, that work would have to be done in the office.

Sometimes, a Saturday or Sunday really wasn't all that different from a Tuesday or Wednesday in terms of the hours I was billing. 

Despite that depressing statistic, there was still something qualitatively different about a weekend.  Even being in the office felt different.  The halls were quieter, the phone didn't ring, the volume on Pandora was turned up louder, and my attire was non-business.  That's right.  On Saturdays, I wore pajamas or a tu-tued leotard to the office.  So that was awesome.

Then when I left the office, I could go meet my husband for dinner or a movie or the circus I'd been practicing for.  I could return to our small apartment that took 5 minutes and one swiffer cloth to clean.  I could do a single load of laundry, pick up pressed shirts at the dry-cleaners, and spend 20 minutes grocery shopping at the glorified convenience store half a block from our building.

We could sleep in a bit on weekend mornings, have a muffin and a coffee in Central Park, and go for a run whenever the mood struck.

As much of a bear New York City was to live in, there were those little things that, in retrospect, I can now appreciate.  Because now?   Oh...Now, you slippery little devil.  Now, you've taught me about the innocence of my lost youth.  Those halcyon days when the only person I had to plan for was myself.  That Gilded Age when waking up at 6AM was something to be bragged about or reported to a medical professional.

The weekends of today, with two children in the mix, are a much different story.  All the mothers reading this post are nodding their heads and wiping the Cheerios off their yoga pants (which have never been used for actual yoga).  Can I get an Amen, sister?

For those of you who don't automatically understand the Before-and-After I'm putting in front of you, allow me to dazzle you with a simile.  (I'm pretty sure it's a simile because I'm going to use the word "like" in the next sentence, which I think disqualifies it as a metaphor.  If you're trying to stifle a correction in your throat or at your fingertips, chill.  It doesn't really matter.)  A weekend of today is like being shot out of a sling-shot.  When the first child cries out, in the wee hours of a soft Saturday morning, you're the rubber ball being launched into the next 14 hours of your day, landing only when the last child's head hits the pillow.

I can honestly say that I'm more exhausted when I arrive at work on a Monday morning than I was when I left it Friday afternoon.  The preceding 60 or so hours are nothing but a blur of meals and chores and inane conversations and bottles and activities and the dreaded grocery shopping extravaganza.  I wish I was talented enough to write a symphony displaying the cacophony of sounds that makes up any given weekend.  I'm not even close, but I know it would include the sound plates make when they're being unloaded from the dishwasher, the clack of a washing machine door, the whining of one child, the fussing of another, the car door opening and closing, the refrigerator door opening and closing, shoes falling off feet, sand spilling, the creak of a swing, the wave of a rattle, a crayon on paper, the whir of a blender, the ping of an oven, the water spray of a shower, and the unfolding of a diaper. 

Oh, and "Mami?  Mami?  Mami?" being repeated ad infinitum in the background.  My daughter begins everything that comes out of her mouth with a "Mami?" or a Mami!" or a "Mami."  By the end of the day, I literally tell her she is no longer allowed to say That Word.

The fact that she has a running play-by-play of the day makes any sort of self-censorship quite a challenge.  I get reports on where the ants are, how many times she's dribbled a ball, when she needs to go to the bathroom, who was funny at school two weeks ago, and why she needs a snack RIGHT NOW.  I am immediately apprised of when a crow lands on the lawn, what toy her brother is playing with, how many bites she's eaten of an apple, who was funny at school yesterday, and where she plans on having a play-date tomorrow.  Yesterday she had so many things to tell me at once that this sentence came out of her mouth:

"Yesterday Hadley wouldn't swing with me and tomorrow I am going to swimming lessons can Molly come play I don't want strawberries because Mateo is rolling over."

There's no good response to that kind of update.  Our conversations are entirely one-sided, with her doing all the talking and me doing all the wondering when I stopped understanding either the English or Spanish language. 

It's these kind of mental gymnastics and the physical feats of keeping up with every move and request and near-catastrophe two small people can make and voice and cause that have me gasping for air by the time Sunday night rolls around.

And this past weekend I did the unspeakable.  I went out both Friday and Saturday night after the kids were ready for bed.  I stayed up until 11PM both nights like some kind of God damned teenager. 

Don't get me wrong.  I know this is what I signed up for, and this is the life of mothers everywhere.  I also know that I love my children dearly, and I wouldn't go back in time for all the ego in Kobe.

But sometime, maybe just for 5 minutes on a Saturday, I would like to sit down with an empty brain in a quiet room and close my eyes.

I think the surrounding I just described is a psych ward. 

Does anyone know if they have hourly rates?

Dear Abby: The Mommy Wars

Today I will be kicking off my "Dear Abby" series, where I do a post on a topic that a reader has suggested to me.  I've decided that I will do these posts every Friday.  Which means fathers everywhere will soon be confused when everyone starts saying Thank God It's DAD every Friday.  You can explain to them that DAD is Dear Abby Day.  I'll be too busy blogging.

Today's topic is the magazine cover heard 'round the world.  It's this rectangular powder keg, in all its glossy glory:

I picked up Time's May 21, 2012 edition the other day.  The last time I read a Time magazine was the time I forgot to bring my book to the gym in 1999.  Upon greeting my long not-lost non-friend, I closed my right eye so I could stop looking at Jamie Lynne Grumet's boob and was immediately underwhelmed.  Either Time is really taking a bullet for the eco-conservative Green Team or they've hit the bottom of the material well, because the issue was shorter than the alphabet books my daughter makes at pre-school.

I'm guessing the slight heft of the magazine is more owing to the latter.  In fact, if I were to put on my Michael Jordan I'll-Bet-On-Anything hat, I'd wager that the editors at Time are afraid that's exactly what they're running out of: time.  I bet they're desperate for readership and trying to cut costs so that Father Time doesn't tell Time that its time is up.

After I read the mommy article, I became convinced I was right.  And I was mad I lost my Michael Jordan speed dial button because I could have just made myself some millions.

The desperation over at Time was confirmed because the content of the article only tangentially related to the explosive image and headline on the cover of the magazine.  Clearly the boob-sucking pre-schooler and the gauntlet-throwing "Mom Enough" challenge were simply a clever ploy to get all of us riled up and ready to spend $5 on 6 pieces of paper.  If they'd accurately depicted the "related" story in a pictorial, it would be a photo of a grandfather dressed in scrubs lecturing a frazzled mother while trying to hide his giggling from her.  And the caption would read "Science -- Who Needs It?"

Needless to say, I have a lot of reactions to the story, but I'm going to try to boil them down to three. 

Reaction 1:  The actual subject of the cover story, Dr. William Sears, is a jerk.

The focus of Time's reporting is not Pilates teachers with breasts just waiting to be suckled.  Instead, it's Dr. William Sears, who published the first edition of The Baby Book in 1992.  In that brick of a book (it's 767 pages long!), Dr. Sears advocates for "attachment parenting."  Boiled down, attachment parenting dictates that "the more time babies spend in their mothers' arms, the better the chances they will turn out to be well-adjusted children."  The basic tenets of such a doctrine are that:

• Mothers should not let their children fuss.  At all.  Every cry should be tended to.
• Mothers should not put their babies down.  Ever.  If mommy needs to use her hands for something other than toting Junior, Dr. Sears sells a sling that mommy can rig to her torso and deposit Junior into.
• Babies should "co-sleep" (ie. share a bed with) their parents.
• And yes, as Time walloped us over the head with, mommy should breastfeed Junior for as long as possible.  Biologically possible.  Not socially-acceptable possible.

As I will discuss more below, I have no real issue with attachment parenting in and of itself.  It is certainly not for me, but if some mothers feel like that's how this whole parenting mystery unfolds itself for them, fine.  And wow.

But I have a real issue with Dr. Sears.  He, together with his wife, cobbled together the attachment parenting movement relying on their personal histories, their Catholic faith, and their random reading choices.  Both Dr. and Mrs. Sears felt abandoned by one or both of their parents in their own childhoods.  Both are deeply religious.  And both got the idea for their life's work from a book called The Continuum Concept.

This book was written by Jean Liedloff, a college-dropout turned part-time model who decided to go dig for diamonds in Venezuela in about the 1960s.  (I'm serious.  On all counts.)  She noticed that the indigenous people in the South American jungle carried their children with them all the time, and that those children seemed to "cry less" than American babies.  Based on her uneducated observations, she wrote The Continuum Concept and told mothers everywhere they needed to be more "connected" to their children.  She went on to decide never to have children of her own.  The Searses went on to decide to make her their prophet.

They've so bought into the attachment parenting thing that Mrs. Sears actually says things like "[leaving a baby] to cry in her crib damage[s] her brain."  Dr. Sears is quick to chime in with a comment that putting a baby in a crib is putting a baby "behind bars."  The only way to save your baby from dyslexia or jail, they conclude, is for mommy to a stop everything except lactation.

The couple peddles this lifestyle despite the fact that there is no scientific support for their statements and mountains  of it to contradict them.  They hold essentially firm despite the decidedly sexist undertones of their message, which they try to soften with suggestions that fathers "do the dishes" or book mommy a massage.  Their response to doubters is simply to say that their method is the method God likes, and that their preaching is based on the practices that have worked for them.  Then they condemn any mother who would dare put her baby on a schedule or on a bottle, even though that's the method Dr. Spock likes, and those are the practices that have worked for millions.

My bottom line: if your idea of childbirth is just moving a baby from the womb to other side of your epidermis, enjoy your years as a kangaroo.  I just hope you have a reason better than Dr. Sears' say-so to do it.  To my mind, his game is an exploitative racket.

Reaction 2:  The whole "Mommy Wars" firestorm needs to be extinguished.

Time magazine is just as exploitative.  After the whole Ann Romney "don't tell me I don't 'work' just because I never 'worked' outside the home" debacle, the world has fallen down the Mommy Wars rabbit hole.  "Working" moms versus stay-at-home moms.  Attachment parenting versus helicopter parenting versus I just want my kid to be a good person and not too clingy and eat the occasional vegetable parenting.  Time magazine asking if you're mom "enough."  As if mothering is some beach the U.S. Marines are trying to storm.

Enough, already.  In the history of time, no perfect parent -- much less mother -- has ever been identified.  Probably because every parent started off as the kid their parents scarred or neglected or screwed up in some way.  Imperfect children grow up to be imperfect parents, and the whole wide world is made up of imperfect people. 

Some kids grow up to be better people than other kids grow up to be, sure.  But I think it'd be tough to argue, with a straight face, that Johnny is so much more well-adjusted than Albert because Johnny piggy-backed his mother until he outweighed her.  There's a lot that goes into making us who we are.  Of course a huge building block is how we're raised during our formative years.  I can say, though, that a lot of who I am is the result of things I had to go off and do on my own during, for example, the big bad years of kindergarten.  My mother could have never let me shed a single tear under her watchful eye, but I probably would have still suffered from confidence issues after a crush wasn't reciprocated or some other fact of life -- that my mother had no control over -- hit me upside the head.

In other words, an extra month of breast-feeding does not, to my mind, a Mother Theresa or Warren Buffett or Gisele Bundchen (I'm using her as a self-confidence standard-bearer) make.  Not in and of itself.

What WILL make a difference, way more often than not, is a semi-sane, semi-grounded mother.  And whatever it takes for mommy to find the sweet spot to her parenting is what mommy should do.  As long as, of course, it's not the sweet taste of coke on her teeth after she snorts a line or some similarly illegal and universally frowned upon parenting technique.

Mommy pitting herself against mommy is just unhelpful.  Spend your time taking care of your kids and taking care of yourself, in the way and to the degree that resonates with you.  Don't worry what the mommy next door is doing if it's just to criticize it.  Find a different way to reassure yourself that what you're doing is right for you and yours.  Cutting your fellow mommy down to size to make yourself feel righteous is very middle school of you.  That's a sure-fire way to teach an imperfect attitude and approach to life to those kids hanging from your neck.

And every media outlet or other third-party who wants to do the pitting just to generate sound bites is beyond unhelpful -- it's cheap.

Reaction 3:  This is just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Despite all of the above, there's no way to look at that cover and not feel like it's raining softballs.  In that vein, let's end this on a light note. 

I think you can take your cues from your kid on when is the right time for you two to stop with the breast-feeding routine.  If your kid can verbalize any of the following, I'd say you're getting more than just cues that the end is 'nigh.  You're receiving spam from Mother Nature delivered via a megaphone:

• "Mom, I need to wash down the spaghetti o's.  Has your right breast recovered from this morning?"
• "Hey guys, I need to take a break from tag.  I'm parched.  Mom, put down your book and pull up your t-shirt!"
• "Move over, Sam!  You're hogging all the boobs!"
• "Today Bobby was telling me about these things called juice boxes.  What in the world are those?"
• "Mom!  I passed the test!  I got my driver's license!  Can we celebrate with both sides?!?"
• "MAAAAA!!!!  THE BREAST MILK!!!!"

Submit your idea or suggestion for a "Dear Abby" post by emailing me at abbysblog@rocketmail.com.  All the other, intricate details of this something-for-everyone are explained here. 

Concrete Sailing

This past weekend was a long weekend for me.  "Long" in the sense that I had Friday off from work, and "long" in the sense that I spent most of it in a car with my husband, two children, and mother-in-law.  So that second "long" is basically short for "you're a fool and you deserve those varicose veins."

You see, my supremely adorable nephew was being baptized in a Philly suburb on Saturday.  My husband was the godfather.  My children wanted to see if they could discover new dimensions of fidgeting.  My mother-in-law was in town for a visit.  And I wanted to see if super soakers shoot holy water just as well as they shoot regular tap water.  (They do.)

The motivations for the trip, therefore, were all pure.  And the time spent with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew were dynamite.  I wouldn't pass that up for anything, and I don't regret going to see them at all.

We just should have picked a different way to transport ourselves to those moments.  Because I think I can safely say that an 8-hour road trip with the crew we had on board was not the best idea.  I don't know why it took doing that road trip to understand that.  The silver lining is that now, when I go on tour with my band Mothering Mullets, I know I have to look beyond my kitchen counter for roadies.

In the context of a bad decision to drive farther than next door with an under-five and over-70 set, there was one good decision: my husband suggested we rent a mini-van for the trip.  I can officially report that five people have never been so gleeful to step inside a such a vehicle.  It was brand, spanking new, and the doors opened automatically, and it had lots of secret compartments, AND IT HAD SATELLITE RADIO AND A DVD PLAYER.  My husband and I were choking back the tears as we loaded our 57 suitcases into the spacious trunk.  We just kept looking at each other with looks we both understood to mean, "wow, look at us -- we've really made it."  It was special.

The first leg of the trip was easy -- after leaving work early on Thursday, we just had to make it to Boston where we were meeting up with my mother-in-law.  We were happy campers as we sailed out of the rental car lot.  My daughter was playing with the toys I'd hidden for the trip, my son was napping, and my husband was gleefully singing along to the 80s station he found on the satellite radio.  We survived a bit of traffic in Boston and bunked down for the night at a Doubletree Suites.  We were all still high enough on life that it seemed "cozy" to cuddle up in a bedroom/living room combo that is the size of most master bathrooms. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, I was up at 3:30 on Friday morning.  Everyone was snoring (including my 7-month-old) and my daughter was lying on me.  I mean that literally.  She was lying ON. ME.  But again, Mrs. Brightside here just figured, well, this is great!  I'll get in a work out and even have the gym to myself.  So I did.  I went to the gym at 4:30 that morning.

Thus began my slow but steady descent into a series of poor decisions caused by a complete lack of restorative sleep.  Actually, just sleep, period.

POOR DECISION #1: Allow husband to pack the car and forget to identify for him the bag containing the snacks.

Traveling with a four-year-old requires an endless supplies of diversions.  Perhaps the most important one is food.  It keeps their mouths busy with all the chewing and the swallowing, and it offers the promise of a food coma that knocks them out for at least a couple hours of the trip.

That food and drink should be available at a moment's notice.  In fact, it's best if it can be supplied at warp speed, something akin to however it would feel to be on the receiving end of a dog digging up a mound of earth.  In this scenario, you (the parent) are the dog, the food is the dirt, and your kid is whatever is receiving the spray.

Well, of course the non-descript black bag that I had meticulously packed with pre-packaged organic goods was at the bottom of the suitcase volcano slowing erupting out of our trunk.  By the time we left Boston and hit Newton, my daughter asked for her first snack.  The snack bag was nowhere to be reached.  We spent the next 4 hours trying to convince her that water was as delicious as a Grover granola bar.

POOR DECISION #2:  Put mother-in-law in the back seat.

In some ways, this seating arrangement made good sense and paid dividends.  She was able to give a running report on what our backwards-facing son was up to at any moment of the trip.  She was able to feed him during traffic jams.  She had a good view of the DVDs.

But the downsides were dramatic.  To simply exit the car, she had to navigate an obstacle course of bags, toys, and debris that I think looked something like the first challenge producers prepare for contenders on Survivor.  A pretty basic goal of any car trip should be "let's not maim the mother-in-law with a Barbie limb lying between the captain seats."  We flirted with that catastrophe for three full days.

The other downside was the communication.  Those status updates about my son came fast and furious, as did the instructions about when to have the EZPass ready and when to adjust the volume and/or temperature.  But since she was in the back, and since there was a lot of "ambient noise," she had to SCREAM every report, instruction, or request.  Accordingly, when we got word that "THE BABY IS ASLEEP!!!" we soon thereafter learned that "AH!  THE BABY WOKE UP!  HE'S AWAKE!  BE ADVISED!  HE. IS. AWAKE!!!"

POOR DECISION #3: Take a road-trip that has anything to do with New York City.

You know you're a bad-ass city when the STATES in your vicinity suffer just from being near you.  I bet when New York City was in high school, he was totally the guy stuffing Providence into lockers and getting Newark and Stamford suspended just because they were friends with him.  New York City was the reason Greenwich had to do a PG year before Yale. 

After barreling through the wide open spaces of western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut, you arrive in New Haven.  You see the signs for Yale, and you start to feel dumb and not worthy.  Then you see the signs for New York City, and you immediately start to feel stalled.  That's because you are. You are sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, even though it's noon on a Friday and even though you're 80 miles outside of New York City.  You creep forward at about 12 mph for the next 5 hours, giving the finger to the cars full of people trying to spell SoHo and fighting over whether they're going to go to the M&M Store in Times Square before or after they take the free ferry ride to Staten Island. 

Your reward is the George Washington bridge.  Scratch that.  The GW bridge is an architectural dunce cap, given to road warriors who stupidly opt against taking the Tappan Zee bridge.  No one in the history of time or Detroit has ever crossed the GW bridge in a car and in a good mood.  Maybe it's all the signs warning you of HEAVY DELAYS as a mini Cooper tries to piggy-back your car.  Maybe it's the lady rolling her laundry down the streets of the Bronx who haughtily informs you she's washed both her darks and her whites in the time it took you to move one block south.  Maybe it's the $12 toll you pay for the privilege of slowly moving through hell.  I don't know.

I just know that when my husband tried to lighten the mood by screaming "we're concrete sailing!  WEEEEEE!" like that pig in the Geico commercials, I almost had to beat him to death with a coloring book.

POOR DECISION #4: Take Comfort Suites at its word.

Our second hotel for the trip was a Comfort Suites in Exton, PA.  My thinking here was such a room would be (a) a suite (ie. a living room and a bedroom) that could accommodate 5 people, one of whom would be sleeping in a pack 'n play; and (b) comfortable.  Apparently the guy who comes up with the names over at Comfort Suites is a real wise guy.

The room we walked into, after driving for so many hours my son sprouted two new teeth, was the size of my cubicle.  I could have done one somersault in it.  Maybe one round-off.  Certainly not a full cartwheel.

My husband called downstairs and tried to see if he could resolve the mix-up.  Our hero at the front desk said he'd call right back.  15 minutes later, I was bleeding from my brain.

I went downstairs to see if a face-to-face could speed up the science project.  This is the conversation I had:

ME:  Ummmm....hi?  My husband called 20 minutes ago to see if we could get the suite we made a reservation for.  I see you're heavily consulting a clipboard with a thin sheet of paper. Might I suggest firing up that computer in front of you?

DESK GUY:  ttttttttttttt

ME:  What we need, here, is a suite.  Like the one in your name?  Well, not YOUR name, Ramesh.  But the name of the hotel? 

DESK GUY:  I just found a room with a jacuzzi!  You want that?

ME:  Thanks so much for asking, Ramesh, but no.  What I really need here is a suite.  Like with a living room containing a plush pull-out couch, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Maybe a swanky kitchenette with a miniature coffee maker and some of that atomized coffee "creamer."  Is the picture I'm painting here of any help whatsoever?  Can you stop staring at the lights and focus?

DESK GUY:  Oh.  But we don't have any rooms like that.

ME:  You don't have any suites?  Why is this place called Comfort Suites?  Why did I book a room called a "suite" when I made this hotel reservation?   Bonus points if you can answer why God hates me?

DESK GUY:  When we say "suites" here, it means that chair that pushes into your desk.  Without the chair, it'd just be your standard room, but with the chair, it's a suite.  Do you I look taller when I stand up to talk to you?

The moral of the story is when you're traveling through Exton, PA and you've rented a minivan, sleep in the minivan. 

POOR DECISION #5: Plan anything for the week after the road trip.

By the time we left for our third hotel in three nights, and certainly by yesterday morning when we embarked on the final leg of our drive home, my husband and I were plum out of the crazy enthusiasm we'd had in supply when we began our journey.

By the time we limped into our driveway yesterday afternoon, we felt like we'd just walked through a car wash that was on the setting for getting road salt off the underside of your car after a particularly rough winter.

I spent the next eight hours unpacking, doing dishes, doing laundry, bathing over-tired children, ridding our house of the distinct smell of baby chicks, and making a birthday cake for my daughter to take to school today.

This morning my daughter woke up complaining of an earache.

I just received a call from my son's daycare.  They called to report he's cranky and running a temperature.

Needless to say, I think swimming lessons this afternoon will resemble an Olympic qualifying meet, and when I host book club on Wednesday night, those ladies are going to leave my house embarrassed that they'd spent their whole lives thinking Martha Stewart was a slightly rotund blonde living in Connecticut.

Off to The Races

This was a big weekend for stupid hats and limes.  Saturday was both Cinco de Mayo and the running of the Kentucky Derby.  For some reason, people (or at least Twitter) thought that coincidence was pretty epic.  I just thought Cinco de Mayo should back off and let those horses get their glory.

To me, Cinco de Mayo is the slightly delayed twin sister of St. Patrick's Day.  These are two "holidays" that pretend to be steeped in some kind of cultural, traditional lore but really signify nothing more than ready-made excuses for all the drinking that gets done.  The key demographic on both days are college students and overweight, middle-aged men.  Both of those sets would be, and are, drinking heavily on Saturdays throughout the calendar year anyway.  Cinco de Drinko and St. Find-A-Pub Day simply mean they don't have to come up with their own theme for the foreplay to vomit and hangovers.  It's gotten to the point that, if I see a sombrero or anything green, I immediately conclude that the object sporting that attire must be drunk and supremely idiotic.  Which is unfair to mariachis and frogs, but it's just the kind of stereotyping I have to assign to keep some order in my world.

The Kentucky Derby, on the other hand, is an annual highlight in my sporting world.  I close my eyes whenever they pan the crowd, as rich blonds in large hats warbling "My Old Kentucky Home" kind of makes me want to go out drinking with sombrero-wearing college students.  But those gals aside, I love just about everything about the event.  Appropriately enough, the thing that really gets me every time are those horses.  How hard they work, how earnest they seem, and how they don't do a stupid dance or point to the heavens after they accomplish insane feats of athleticism.  My kind of athletes.

It was fitting that the kick-off to the Triple Crown was this weekend, because I feel as though I have been kicked off to a race of my own.  In my case, though, that race is going to last about two weeks.  And I'm nowhere near the athlete those horses are.  In fact, my thoroughbred name should be Please Just Let Me Lie Down or This Won't End Well.

I have the same feeling about the next two weeks as I used to have about any given day at my old law firm: like I spend the day trying to climb up a mountain of quicksand.  No matter what I do, I am falling behind.  No matter what I get done, the pile of to-do's keeps getting bigger.

This is a month of birthdays and birthday parties, including one of each for my daughter.  Home renovations.  A swing-set getting set up.  Teacher Appreciation parties.  A no-school day.  A four-day road-trip.  A visit from my mother-in-law.  Doctor's appointments.  Hosting book club.   Then all the normal stuff of school and daycare and work and housework and dinners and updating my list on why Bethenny Frankel is annoying.  Et cetera.  For Pete's sake, there are two (2!!) mornings this week where I need to have myself and both children out of the house by 7:30am.  As we all know, that won't go well.  The producers of the Dr. Phil Show have already called to book me for a segment they're calling "Mothers to Avoid (Especially If You're Their Child)."

As I type these things, I realize how banal this must sound.  People are doing much bigger and busier things.  I have a girlfriend who runs her own business, has a 15-month-old, and managed to win a baby shower we were at yesterday with her perfect gifts.  Amazing.  Francois Hollande has eight days to learn how to be President of France.  Impressive.  The Knicks have two more games to try to figure out how to covertly poison LeBron James' mouth guard.  Daunting.  (And sketchy.)

I get that people are facing into much bigger things than I am.  So please trust me when I write that I am not going for melodrama or sympathy here.  It just is what it is, and that "it" is all relative.  In my world, things seem really busy right now, and I don't like feeling as though I'm just never going to be able to get in front of my calendar.  I'd love to know how the aforementioned girlfriend manages it all, and I'd take any advice Monsieur Hollande wants to give me over a crepe nutella.  (I think I'll leave the Knicks and their arsenic-lacing to themselves.)  Because right now, my to-do list is dictating its own to-do list, and I just don't think that's helpful to anyone.  If there's anything I don't have time for right now, it's cross-referencing.

In fact, my current mentality is nothing more than a series of "if there's anything I don't have time for, it's X."  When "X" inevitably strikes, my response is nuclear.  Here are some "X's" that happened just this morning:

• I slept until 6:30.  That means I was already about 2 hours behind schedule.  My reaction was to cancel Christmas.
• My daughter refused to get dressed.  That means we left the house around the time her peers were "criss-cross, apple-saucing" their legs for circle time.  My reaction was to drop my daughter off at school naked.
• I got to work late.  That means there were no parking spaces left in the lot.  My reaction was to leave my car idling on the highway with a note that said "Back Soon."  (I put a smiley face to ensure no one will steal the car.  Plus, I double-checked and I do still live in Maine.  So that car's safety is guaranteed.)

Every little thing just seems conspiring against me this morning.  My computer wouldn't boot up properly and I kept having to restart it so that Microsoft Outlook would stop demanding my "authentication."  I have a low-grade cold that gives me a raspy voice, which scares anyone who has to talk to me.  Last night I took NyQuil and I think I'm still medically impaired -- I can't really get a hold of a single word or thought.  Which means this must be an awesome post.  And when I turned to the radio for a little musical inspiration, the first two stations I checked were BOTH playing Rihanna's "We Found Love."  If that girl can't take the time to write actual song lyrics, how am I supposed to get motivated to write 18 thank-you notes on behalf of my daughter?  How, I ask you?!?

Seriously, guys, I am so whacked out on NyQuil, I can't even muster the courage to wrap this up nicely.  Good luck, and Godspeed. 

Also, could someone please remind me of that Very Important Thing my husband told me I absolutely must do?  My to-do list's to-do list doesn't have it noted. 

Thanks.  You're the best.

So You Think You Can Tweet

The other day I did something I'd been dreading for a long time.  It was kind of just sitting out there, staring at me.  I'd try to ignore it, I'd try to avoid it, I'd try to pretend it wasn't there.  Because it was just too scary.  Too dramatic.  Too traumatic.

But I couldn't run any longer.  It was going to track me down, snuff me out, bring me to justice.  That's right -- in this metaphorical scenario, the "IT" was George W. Bush and I was Osama bin Laden.  Minus the facial hair.  Oddly enough, I have been into turbans lately, so on that score I was even dressing the part.

Anyway, my time hiding out in a Bora Bora of made-up errands and endless procrastination came to an end.  It was time to rip the Band-Aid off and just do the thing that had been scaring me for weeks.

So I did it.  I helped my mother get an account on Twitter.

My mother is a woman of extremes.  She is extremely happy and optimistic, and extremely opposed to swearing.  What a bitch, right?  She loves everything and hates nothing (EXCEPT maybe Osama bin Laden, but she'd even say he probably just didn't get enough attention as a boy with all those siblings and his father's numerous wives running around.  "That's a crock of shit," I like to tell her.).  She is really good with kids and she is ... well, not really good with technology.

Back when email was all the rage, I was a senior in college.  (That is a horrifying sentence to write.)  I remember when my mother set up an email account from our home computer, and she sent off a little missive to me at school.  As soon as she hit "send," she CALLED ME to see if I had received the email.  Then we had a long conversation about how email is supposed to allow you to communicate information and pretend interaction without actually having to communicate or interact.  Then I called her an "asshole" and hung up.  (If you haven't caught on yet, I like to swear at her just to remind her of all the fun she could be having.)

Over the years, she's accumulated a laptop, a Facebook account, and an iPhone.  Watching her receive and use these things is sometimes cute and fun, like watching a puppy get a fresh tennis ball.  It's all excitement and unbridled enthusiasm.  Less drooling, though.  And no one throws her iPhone at her.  Okay, it's nothing at all like a dog with a tennis ball.  The picture I'm trying to paint here is that my mother gets excited and enthusiastic about what the kids are doing these days ... whenever those days are. 

The problem is, the excitement and the enthusiasm don't usually translate to a full-blown embrace of the power and the responsibility she has at her fingertips.  Her laptop's primary function has been to create and order Chrismas cards.  It's protesting its neglect with a deteriorating connection speed.  A tea kettle works faster than that computer.  She's always amazed when my sisters and I reference a picture, or a status update, or a video of a baby's birth and ensuing 6 months of life, on Facebook.  She gives us this hang-dog look, like we're in cahoots to keep her in the dark on all the details of that girl we kind of knew in 3rd grade because we went roller-skating with her on early release days.  The four of us just look at her and shout "MA!  THE FACEBOOK!"  Because that's code for "you, too, could be enjoying all these nuggets from the ghosts of your/our class pictures past if you just logged in every now and then."  For all we know, the vice president of her elementary school student council has been trying to get in touch with her for years, and mum's just been missing out on reminiscing about the all-vegetable bake sale they did in 1962 to raise money for a litter of neglected kittens. 

I can't even get started on her abject failure to properly respect her iPhone.  If she raised her children the way she is raising her iPhone, I'd be dictating this post (since I'd be illiterate) to my probation officer (since I had to steal a tv to pay for my crystal meth) in Omaha (since they have the worst tv store security).  Let's just leave it at that.

But now she wants in on the random bursts of laugther, the recounting of out-of-left-field facts, the references to SmartyPants267 and GoFishFish.  She wants to speak @ and # and * and RT.  She wants to follow people.  Probably to tell them how wonderful they are.  Again, BITCH, right?

So I hooked my girl up.  And now she asks me shit like, "so, honey, now that I have Twitter, can you teach me how to tweet?"  Or "so, honey, now that I have Twitter, I can just go to w-w-w-dot-twitter-dot-com and see what everyone is saying to me?"  Or, "so, honey, now that I have Twitter, there will be no more starving children in Africa?"  It's like with every question she has to brag about having Twitter now, then boondoggle my brain, and then sneak in a reference to "poor Osama's" birthplace.  It's like she just can't stop thinking about the guy.

Editor's Note: If you read this post and you are associated in any way with a government agency that has ever had the words "counter" or "terrorism" reside on any document on your server, put down your warrant and cut the wire-tap.  The references here to Osama bin Laden are a fancy literary device.  That device is called "satire."  If that word is too big for you, then think of it as "humor."  If that word is too big for you, then think of it as "funny."  If that word is too big for you, then I have no idea how you have a job, much less one for our government.  Also, I hate you.

P.S. Mum still hasn't sent a tweet.

P.P.S.  Mum has 4,326 unread emails in her inbox.

P.P.P.S.  I think I might tell mum there's an Internet law that says you can't tweet, or ask questions about tweeting, until your Inbox is appropriately indexed.  Government counter-terrorism agents aren't the only sneaky ones in these here parts.  And mum is extremely into following the law.

Mayday

This morning I woke up ready to celebrate May Day.  What's more fun than wrapping up a tall pole with some long strips of fabric, I ask you?  Nothing, that's what.

This May Day also marks an end and a beginning.  It's the end of my 32nd year, and the beginning of my family's life as Chicken Tenderers (definitely not to be confused with chicken tenders).  That's right, the baby chicks arrive this week. 

As you can imagine, I bounded out of bed this morning with an extra pep in my step.  A wiggle in my walk, if you will.

And then a different kind of mayday hit me.  The distress kind of mayday.  It was coming from my closet.

MAYDAY.  MAYDAY.  MAYDAY.  This is Abby's closet.  There are 17 articles of clothing hanging in me.  I require immediate assistance.  MAYDAY.  MAYDAY.  MAYDAY.

I went through a variety of emotions.  They were so jumbled that I will not be able to recreate them here for you in any particular order, but they included at least the following:

Panic.  I have two sleeping children down the hall, asshole.  Can we be a bit more quiet about this?!?

Shock.  Who knew my closet could talk!?!

Anticipation.  With a talking closet, an entirely new income stream has just presented itself.  Will all the paying visitors prefer to listen to Closet Confidentials from the bed or from the pile of laundry by the dresser?

Confusion.  I thought "coming out of the closet" meant something completely different.  Thanks for nothing, Ricky Martin.

Parental.  I warned Closet that it better not make me come in there, and I reminded it that making a hoax mayday call is a criminal act in many countries.  If this was all some big joke, Closet was going to have all its nice plastic hangers taken away and it was going to be all metal hangers from the dry-cleaners, all the time.  So Closet better put its thinking cap on and decide if was going to be a good Closet or a bad Closet.

What I got in response:

MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY. This is Abby's closet. There are 17 articles of clothing hanging in me. I require immediate assistance. MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY.

So Closet was sticking with its story.  I was left only to acknowledge that Closet was right.  It WAS in grave and imminent danger.  At that moment, I felt nothing but shame.

I opened Closet's door a crack, and all that stared back at me was darkness.  Not because there's no light in my closet, but because every piece of clothing in Closet is black.  No, that's an exaggeration.  There are a few hits of grey, navy blue, and one white button-down shirt for when an invitation specifies virginal attire.

Basically, if you were to judge me by Closet, you would think I'm a professional pallbearer.  Or that my family and friends have astoundingly bad luck and are constantly dying on me.  Or that I just escaped from somewhere and am trying to blend in with my surroundings by keeping to a strict color scheme of non-colors.

The other remarkable thing about my clothes inside of Closet is how few there are.  If I spread out my fingers and then touched my hands thumb-to-thumb, I could cover the distance across the entire line-up of my hanging wardrobe.  I am only left to conclude that I watched too many Today show segments on how to make a month's worth of outfits using only 6 different pieces.

Actually, that's not true.  I know why I have so few clothes.  I am a horrendous shopper.  It's a chore and a process that scare me.  Just typing this, right now, is making my stomach churn and I kind of have a sweaty feeling in my throat.  I didn't even know sweaty throat was a possible condition, but I have it right now just THINKING about shopping.  That's how extreme my condition is. 

When I walk into a store, I wander around like some cave dweller that has just been exposed to light.  There's lots of stumbling involved, and my hands are constantly rubbing my eyes and patting my temples.  If my children are with me, they immediately start crying because they think I'm about to die, and that's alarming to the pre-school set.  I usually end up in the exact part of the store where I have no business being, like Men's Tall, and I spend 5-7 minutes pretending I'm tie shopping for Pau Gasol.  Finally the calendar alert I've set on my phone goes off and screams at me "you need a crew neck t-shirt, you dope!".  At that point, I blindly run in the direction of the women's section, guided only by the scent of mingling perfumes, and I grab a muu muu, throw a $20 in the direction of the cash registers, and sprint for the exits.  Then I sit in the car breathing heavily until a mall security guard ambles over and what-seems-to-be-the-problems me.

Needless to say, I have plenty of dishrags thanks to all the muu muus I've purchased over the years, but I don't have a single damned crew neck t-shirt.

I also know why the colors are what designers like to refer to as "Depressive" or "Friendless."  I like to bring as little attention to myself as absolutely possible.  I know that's bizarre, given that I have a blog and get really excited on days when "readership" ticks up.  But it's so much easier to "be" out in the world when it's over a computer screen.  Words are so much easier to package up than I personally am.  When I find myself in the middle of a social interaction, all I hear are fire alarms and a blaring voice (I always assume it's God) telling me to abort.  Dark clothes help me hide.  And probably help scare people away.  So everyone wins.

There's a part B to the color conundrum.  Raise your hand if you're sick of the phrase "pop of color."  SPOILER ALERT: I AM RAISING BOTH HANDS.  If I read or hear one more person trumpet the awesomeness of a "pop of color," I am going to pop the writer or the speaker in the head.  Target's logo has a big "pop" of red and I don't see anyone wearing a bulls-eye down the red carpet.  Explosions are pretty big "pops" of flame-related colors, and no one is going around torching living rooms to impress their dinner guests.  Let's just start taking it easy on the "pop of color" frenzy, is what I am trying not to insinuate but to profoundly beg.  I will lead the way with my monochromatic monasticism. 

I will admit, though, that I am getting a little tired of the same, nearly threadbare clothes.  I know I need an intervention.  I just didn't expect it from Closet.

And I apologize in advance to my daughter and her classmates.  Tomorrow they are hosting a "Mother's Day Tea," and we've all been encouraged to come dressed in bright springy colors, as well as spring hats and even gloves.  I will be dressed, of course, as Death.

Pass The Peace Pipe

I've known my husband for more than a decade; we've been married almost 8 years.  And it's true what they say -- you are always learning something new about your spouse.

This weekend, I learned that if my husband were Native American, his name would be Sir Chips A Lot and his animal spirit would be a beaver.  Which I think would make him a member of the Passamaquoddy tribe, but I'm no expert.

Alas, he's Puerto Rican.  So I gave him a borinquen name, which is cabron, por que no puedes jugar al golf?  Roughly translated, that means "Hey Asshole, can't you just play golf?"

You know about his chicken mongering.  You know about his skunk trapping.  Someday I'll tell you about the rusted-out, 1960s Jeep truck he bought days before our son was born that sits at the top of our driveway.  Today's focus is on the wood-clearing efforts he has dedicated the past two weekends to.

Editor's Note:  Yes, our home is available for weddings.  No, I don't know when the next vacancy is.  Yes, if you want to use our livestock in your still shots, it's an extra cost.  No, I don't think you'll be able to use the truck for your drive-away.  It doesn't have seats.

This husband of mine has never met a hamper he likes to put laundry in.  The last time he made a bed was in this dream he had about military school.  He thinks wet towels dry best when they're lying on the floor.

This same husband was annoyed by all the sticks lying in the woods surrounding our house.  He thought they looked too messy, just lying there being sticks.  He wanted to clean out those grounds so that they boasted nothing more than plain old dirt.  Like God and tent-pitchers intended.

So last weekend he spent two days clearing out all the sticks.  He laid them in piles along the perimeter of our property.  Picture, if you will, our home as the scene of one of the obstacle course challenges the Hunger Games tributes had to tackle before earning their scores for sponsorship.  It was real homey.  If your home is a dam.

He spent last week like some pioneer man, drinking his coffee standing at the window, staring out at his piles of sticks, deep in thought.  As if he was going to reckon when the locusts were going to strike or if the weevil bugs were going to threaten the crops this year.  Only in his version, he was wondering how he was going to get rid of the woods he'd just removed from the woods.

His answer: a wood chipper.

Now, I know I live in Maine.  I even grew up in Maine.  But all that living has been done in the populated part, not the potato part.  So before this past weekend, I had no idea what a wood chipper even looked like.  It's not like we have BYOL (Bring Your Own Log) parties on Saturday nights where the kids get to decorate safety glasses with puffy paint and glitter.  Yet somehow my better half seemed to know about these contraptions, and he was confident it was just what we needed.  THEY EVEN RENT THEM AT THE HARDWARE STORE RIGHT DOWN THE STREET!  It's as if a wood chipper was our destiny.  We couldn't NOT rent it.  (Screw you, destiny.)

So on Saturday afternoon, my husband borrowed my father's truck and went to pick up our Hungry Hippo.  My children and I were frolicking in the lawn, just waiting for Norman Rockwell to come paint us.  All of a sudden, it got shady and the temperature dropped.  I looked up from the daisy chains we were making and saw a small tank making its way down the street.  I started leading the way to the bomb shelter, thinking surely we were under attack, when I saw a familiar looking arm waving gleefully out of what I slowly discerned to be the driver's side window.  It was my husband. Towing a large, lumbering, yellow thing I now know to be a wood chipper.  Into our driveway.

We spent the next five minutes just staring at each other.  He was grinning.  I was not.  We were each trying to figure out why the other was having the reaction he/she was.  Finally, we both gave up and the conversation returned to our relationship.

We had to figure out where to put this wood chipper.  It was currently behind the truck at the very end of our driveway, and if we agreed on anything that Saturday, it was that we could not send a spray of wood chips into the main public road.  My husband volunteered to back the entire rig out the driveway, and then back it into the driveway.  That way the chipper would be at the top and could then be angled to shoot wood chips along the side of our driveway and kind of back into the woods. 

Problem is, my husband had never driven a trailer before.  So he had a hard time figuring out how to maneuver the world's largest truck attached to a man-made mountain of metal.  For every two feet he backed up, the wood chipper only jack-knifed two feet more in the exact opposite direction we wanted it to.  At one point, the right front tire of the truck was perched precariously on the low stone wall lining one side of our driveway, and the chipper was about to take its first bath in the shallow creek that runs along the other.  It was at that very moment where I turned to my daughter and asked her "How do you think Papi is doing?".  Her answer: "Not very good."

The lesson here is that we should start letting our 3-year-old plan our weekends.

Finally I started shouting directions at my husband, which were of course very helpful and very precise.  They didn't compute, though.  Soon I was just standing expressionless in the middle of our driveway, stone-cold still except for my mouth, which was screaming "LEFT!!!  NO MY LEFT!!!  OKAY, YOUR RIGHT!!!  WATCH THE BIKER!"

At that point, my husband put the car in park and asked me why I was berating him so publicly.

I said I wasn't berating him, I was just giving directions.

He requested that I please do so in a more loving tone.

I responded that he was dangerously close to death-do-us-parting.

So we abandoned ship and decided that we would PUSH the wood chipper to its final resting place.  That effort turned out not to be so bad.  The chipper finally got to where we "wanted" it, and I got to squeeze my spleen out my ear.

With all systems go, my husband spent the next 36 hours chipping wood.  Feeding sticks and logs and tree limbs alike into the mouth of a digestive system that would make a champion hot-dog eater jealous.  It's moments like this that make a guy appreciate hanging on to that hard hat he lucked into during a company outing. 

Everything -- from our house to our cars to our 7-month-old -- soon became covered in a thin layer of saw dust, and our neighbors all brought over casseroles to thank us for the droning hum coming from our house.  It was busy.

At one point on Sunday, my aunt and two cousins stopped by for a visit.  They hadn't gotten the memo about our wood-chipping extravaganza.  They stepped out of the car, saw the activity, and looked at me.  I could tell they were trying to decide if they should greet me with a "hey!  how are you?" or a "we're so sorry for your loss."  They left soon after.

But eventually it ended.  The last bit of earth was cleared, the last stick was munched.  The wood chipper was returned to its rightful owners, and peace was ours again.

The sun was shining.  We had a late lunch.  We de-sand-blasted my husband's exposed body parts.  We bonfired his "work clothes."  We tossed his ear plugs. 

Then he looked at me and queried:

"Now what do we do with all those piles of wood chips?"

It's at times like that you really do wish you were Native American and that someone was passing you a pipe.  Both because they can weaponized and because you can smoke your husband normal.

Happy Birth Day

On Friday, a dear friend gave birth to her second child, a son.  Today's post is in their honor.

Ten months.  (Not nine - I don't know how/where/why that myth started, and I don't know how it's hung on for so long without someone blowing the lid off.  Bye bye, lid.  You've been blown.)

Ten months of anticipation.  Of waiting for the arrival of the creature you know will change your world.  The creature who will redivide your timeline into The Before and The After.  The creature who you are giving life to and who will, in turn, define yours.

Ten months to prepare.  To design a nursery and buy the onesies and go to check-ups and grow a belly and learn to waddle and sleep on your side.  Ten months to guess the sex and pick a name and form a birth plan.  Ten months to feel the kicks and see the sonograms and hear the heartbeat.

Ten months to wonder.  What color will his eyes be?  How do I feed him?  When will he sleep?  Am I going to know what to do when he cries?  Have I done everything I need to do?  Am I ready?  What does "ready" mean?  When will he come?  Why am I so nervous?  Or is that excited?  Have I ever felt so nervous and excited at the very same time?

Ten months of keeping a secret.  A secret that the person inside of you is someone you already know.  You know what foods make him kick.  You know what positions make him move.  You know what time of day he is quiet, and what time of night he decides to do somersaults.  You know that you talk to him, out loud and in your head and in your heart.  Conversations some can hear, but most they cannot.  Experiences you never have alone because he is always with you, your comrade and companion and friend.  Your baby.

Then someone decides your ten months are up.

You go to the hospital.  You get the plastic bracelet.  You put on the gown.  You try to walk.  Or bounce.  Or breathe.  You grab the bed rails or the extended hand or the sheets.  You watch the monitors and listen to the beeps.  You chart the progress and wait for the 7-8-9-10 and watch the clock.  He is coming, and you can't wait to meet him.  In person, that is.

And then you push.

There he is.  He is finally on your stomach, in your arms, under your lips.  He is cleaned and weighed and measured.  He is swaddled and capped.  He is back on your stomach and in your arms and under your lips.

You are happy.  Deliriously so.  Whatever pain or fatigue or frustration you had felt just minutes before becomes a distant memory, a story to tell, notes to compare.  Now you are more present in your present than you have ever been.  For the first time, you bear witness to a seismic shift in your life as that shift is taking place.  You don't need perspective or distance.  It is happening now, and you know it.  You feel it.

You get wheeled to your recovery room, and he comes with you.  You get put in a new bed, and he is next to you.  You feed him for the first time.  He lets you eat up his every detail.  You change him for the first time.  He changes you forever.

It's your favorite song being played loudly, your favorite book being read by your favorite actor in your favorite setting, your favorite meal being served inside of your favorite piece of art and eaten with your favorite friends...all at the very same time.  It's goosebumps on your arms and butterflies in your stomach and a fast-beating heart and flushed cheeks...all at the very same time.   It's your once-favorite memory becoming nothing more than a trifling afterthought.

It's the fruit of the decision you made ten months ago, and all the hoping and praying and trying tied up with it.

It's smiling so big and so hard your face might crack, your heart might burst, your eyes might forever be crying.

It's the day your anticipation and preparation and wonder and secrecy become the person you introduce to the world.  You'll share him, but he will always be yours.