peevish mama

According to Devil Baby, sometimes babies drop out of God’s pocket and fall into ladies’ bellies and then they are born by shooting out of ladies’ butts. Only sometimes though. If they don’t fall out of God’s pocket, they just shoot out of ladies butts. Spontaneously. Which means that chances are good that with all these babies dropping out of pockets and getting shot out of butts, you could get hit, so take appropriate precautions, is all I’m saying. And all of this simply because Devil Baby’s school had an author come in to read and sign books and said author is with child, igniting Devil Baby’s curiosity and imagination. When I asked her who told her about this pocket business, she said it was Supergirl. Sigh.

Remember when Jamie Lynn Spears got knocked up and I was trying to figure out how to explain the whole debacle to Supergirl? Well, I found this series of books by Robie Harris and I think they are wonderful. When I sat down to read it with Supergirl and Saint James, however, Supergirl scampered off in short order, uninterested in or unable to digest the topic. Saint James, on the other hand, loved it. It felt so familiar and normal to be reading a book together, shoulder to shoulder, that it completely mitigated any awkwardness or wondering how to phrase things on my part. He was genuinely interested, curious and amused by the (admittedly) preposterous sounding facts of life.

My little conversation with Devil Baby was a good reminder that I not only need to purchase the next book in the series to read with Saint James, but I need to revisit the first one with the girls. This time Supergirl will probably sit through it and Devil Baby will scamper off, but such is the process I think. Pass the knowledge along, bit by bit, but come back to it often. In the meantime, helmets and parasols to protect from those flying babies.

By some miracle, I have found a few minutes to myself. And by a few minutes, I really do mean a few minutes. Soon Doctor Dash and the kids will stomp through the back door and I’ll jump up to find out how Dash fared on his first ski outing in 25 years. Devil Baby will inevitably yell I’m doooo oooone! from the toilet in her melodious husky voice. I don’t have time for this. I have presents to wrap and chimichuri to make. I could be setting the table for tonight or even folding the heaping basket of clean laundry lurking in the basement. But I’ve just got this glowy peaceful feeling in my chest and I want to catch it.

A few days ago a dear friend of mine handed me three knitted washcloths tied up with a ribbon when they came over for dinner. I clutched them to my chest because I knew exactly what they were. Her mother, suffering from severe memory loss, knits and knits, cranking out five washcloths every day. If my friend’s mom is anything like my friend, I know she must find much peace and comfort in the doing – allowing her fingers to be active and completing something tangible when every thing else might seem confusing or muted. They are so very beautiful and I’m touched and honored to have them since I know it’s not easy for my friend to give them up. The next morning I laid them out on the dining room table while the kids were having breakfast and I my coffee. I couldn’t help touching them, admiring the neat stitches and rereading the stunning Maya Angelou quote attached to the ribbon: . . . people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel . . .

My kids were very curious, wanting to know the story, if she could recognize anyone, who got her the yarn etc. and took turns checking out the washcloths, each handling them exactly as I might have expected them to. Saint James tossed it in the air and caught it a few times, like a pizza, Supergirl bent her head to study the stitching, Devil Baby rubbed it on her face and then put one on her head like a beret. Handmade objects have a special magic anyway, but so much more when they are an actual physical embodiment of a mind that has been plunged into mystery. They are little pieces of my friend’s mom and I can’t help thinking she is continuing her narrative, in her way, stitch by stitch, row by row, and sending it out into the world.

We all know sometimes things are so beautiful it hurts: a sunset, the face of a lover or a child in a certain light, snow coated branches, a song. I wonder if the opposite is true? That sometimes things hurt so much they become beautiful. I don’t know the answer to that. Perhaps that would be too convenient. But it is what I wonder as I look at my three perfect washcloths.

Merry Christmas, my friends. Hold your loved ones close and enjoy this beautiful holiday weekend.

It has begun. Saint James has jumped down the rabbit hole once and for all. He will emerge fully grown, taller and bigger than I ever imagined, utterly transformed from the scrunchy baby with the face of a boxer I held just yesterday. It has begun. When a child is growing up under your nose, you cannot possibly see the daily change, but there are certain points when the growth is palpable, obvious and crushingly bittersweet. The transition from tiny, tenuous newborn into unbeatable smiling buddha. The jump from toddler to big kid, seemingly overnight some time in the fourth year, when the baby fat melts away to be replaced by long legs, pointy scapula and verbose swagger. And now this. This.

It seems like forever he was the same. Maybe taller, in need of bigger shoes from time to time, but essentially the same. Always hovering around the 60th percentile, Saint James wore the same swim trunks from the age of 5 to the age of 9. Any time I tried to buy a new pair, I’d have to sew a little gather to make them smaller at the waist. My first clue that the winds of change were stirring the trees outside our house was when he ate five pieces of barbecued chicken one night earlier this fall. I could practically hear the latches of his stomach unbuckle to reveal a cavernous secret compartment. All of a sudden he was foraging for cereal after dinner, grabbing a banana on the way out the door, tucking into heaping bowls of pasta and then asking for more. All while I held my breath, giving him searching looks, bracing myself for what was coming.

And then he started to grow. Up and out. His hands are bigger, his face is bigger. His voice isn’t changing but he seems to be pulling it out of a lower spot in his chest. He still tries to climb in my lap when I’m on the computer but he’s really, truly getting too big. I can barely see over his shoulder. My legs start to fall asleep. He pokes me with his knobby elbows. Not that I would shoo him – no way. I will be the scrawny mouse with the giraffe in her lap as long as he’ll let me. I could be gasping for breath under his hulking boy mass, and I would still welcome him with open arms.

I can feel myself doing that thing that mothers do, staring at my kid just a moment too long, searching for the end point, the future, my heart thumping in fear, in joy, thinking: impossible, but true.

When the glorified futon in the sunroom becomes known as the BARF LICE COUCH, it is high time to kick it to the curb. Good riddance, I say. Although BLC will be missed . . . by one small person, which, I suppose is appropriate, it being her barf and all.

Isabella Rossellini stars in and directs a hilarious series of scientifically accurate short videos about animal attraction. It’s hard to stop watching these, they are so clever. My favorite is the duck episode when she says: “They all want to mate with me with their corkscrew penises! Forced copulation! Get away! But I evolve vaginal complexity to keep control!” She’s a gem. Check ‘em out.

I think we’re in the clear, but I say that as I knock on wood with all the knuckles of both hands and feet. That’s TWENTY knuckles, mother fuckers! It is dangerous to underestimate the louse. You need to go in hard. Like a psycho. And you need to keep at it, day after day, like a psycho marathoner. Endurance is key. I think Doctor Dash would agree that I was indeed a psycho last week, and as I breathe my first few tentative sighs of relief (With the wood knocking! With the wood knocking!), I realize that this battle was not without its casualties – namely, my sanity and the signature blond pouf.

How else can I explain the fact that I paid $22 for a hard cover book called 100 % Official Justin Bieber: First Steps 2 Forever: My Story? I was at the bookstore buying this, when Supergirl approached clutching the Bieber tell-all to her chest. I totally don’t want this at all, she blurted, but (Devil Baby) would want this so bad. What is it with my children and their inability to admit love for the Bieber? I can totally admit I love Justin Bieber. So far Devil Baby and I are the only ones who will come clean, but I know there is more love for that young teen nugget in this house. I know it. Since I am understanding and benevolent and INSANE, I said If you read it to her, I’ll buy it. And now we own it. If you want to borrow it, just let me know. I should be done with it any day now.

Further proof that I have lost my mind? I can’t stop buying accoutrements for our new Halloween Spooky Town that I’ve set up in the dining room. WHAT is my problem? These Lemax collectibles are NOT MY THING. In fact, before the lice, I would have sworn on my life that NO collectibles were my thing. But look at me! I have been to Michaels three times looking for the Dreaded Zeppelin with the mechanical spooky blimp that spins around. I want it. I want it so bad. I HATE Michaels, with its smell of cinnamon, vanilla and craft-loving old lady – it’s like Mrs. Claus is  standing in front of a fan and waving her skirt at us. Bluh. But the collectibles are all half price, you see? And, well, the kids are only young once and they love our Spooky Town, right? And I really do love Halloween. So, so, so much. And also, I am not well. Not well at all.

And if it weren’t enough that my sanity is gone, gone also (and arguably more tragically) is Saint James’ signature blond pouf. Panicked with having to pour through several pounds of hair (this family has A LOT of hair), we asked Saint James if we could buzz him. He acquiesced rather than submitting to hours of my nitpicking and sighing and belly aching and now he looks like this:
Beautiful, no? But you know me and my unhealthy love for THE HAIR. This is the first time in his life he has ever had it short and lately we had a good thing going because he and I sort of banded together on the hair thing and we would shut down Doctor Dash whenever he suggested a haircut. It wasn’t just me loving the locks – Saint James loved them too! And I would say to Dash with a cavalier swish of my wine glass, Oh, please, who cares about hair? Respect the lad’s wishes. He’s entitled to have an opinion about his own hair. Let him be. Let him be. La-di-da. Di da. Who cares about hair . . .

Although he looks like a handsome devil and I can see the soft skin on his temples for the first time in ten years, I am bereft. I know hair grows but something tells me he’s going to like it this way and that I’m not going to see da pouf around these parts for a very long time. If ever. So let’s take a moment to say our good byes to the golden pouf. I thought better of putting together a montage set to music for fear it would seem strange, so I leave you with the pictures below. The golden pouf was in rare form a mere two weeks ago at the NSC Cup – extra golden, extra poufy, barely contained by the gigantic bandana. Sigh. Good times . . .

At this time last week, I was a naif. A rube. A foolish, frivolous little woman. I did things like cook and read. Sometimes I went to yoga. Ha, ha, heh, heh, YOGA! Imagine that. Sometimes I even watched shows on TV. Oh, and I did all sorts of other indulgent stuff like open mail, look out the window, shave my legs, and eat yogurt. One time, I even shopped for boots online. I looked at a bunch. It took a while. What an indolent innocent, I was. What a fool.

Little did I know that in a matter of hours I would discover that something sinister and foul, tiny and insidious, had crossed the threshold of our home and taken up residence in the heads of the people I love the most. That’s right. Believe it. We had – I can’t even say it. We had . . . cough cough . . . it rhymes with mice. Oh, I’m not ashamed. It’s everywhere right now. No. I am SHELLSHOCKED. I have never worked this hard in my life. My hands and nerves are raw and cut up. I am battle weary, bone weary, way past the point of sceeve and reason. I am angry. I am wrung out and scarred.

I am exhausted.

And yet, though it defies belief, I discovered that it is possible to love your children more than you did. There is still unchartered territory in the heart, more room to step into, to turn around and look from a different perspective.

It is a simple truth: when you look at every hair on your child’s head, you love him or her even more.

Now excuse me while I go dig an underground swimming pool in my back yard, fill it with vodka, and jump in. Whether or not I put cement blocks on my ankles, I have yet to decide.

To move like that on a rainy street corner. I find it utterly engrossing. The guy in the navy is pure magic.

So I’m driving Devil Baby home from preschool and she says: Oh… My… God… Mom. We got popsicles for Reed Sprinkle’s birthday and it was, like, sooooooo amazing. For whatever reason, I lowered the rear view mirror to catch a glimpse. Maybe because she sounded so old and tweeny, to settle the incongruence between the voice and the face. Or maybe because she was amusing me. Or maybe it was that Reed Sprinkle that caught me. Reed Sprinkle? Whatever the case, without thinking, I lowered the mirror and there we were – framed together in a small telling rectangle. Belied by her words, her face is still the face of a baby – creamy round cheeks and shining eyes. I, on the other hand, well, not so much.

It’s odd to catch a glimpse of yourself live, especially next to the poster child for youth. There is something unsettling about seeing yourself when you’re not looking at yourself – like those video cameras in stores that you don’t know about until you see yourself, shockingly haggard, on a grainy monitor. But these surprise sidelong glimpses must represent the truth, no? At least more of a truth than when you actually look in the mirror, sending alarm bells to your unconscious which mercifully calls forth teams of tiny men in pastel leotards with “denial“ calligraphied across their taught rumps to leap about our minds unfurling long bolts of gauzy sheer fabric to soften the blow and shroud the truth. Right? Am I right?

Reality bites. But what was I supposed to do? Keep staring at myself in scared awe, rear-ending the car in front of me, essentially pulling a Narcissus, modern minivan mommy style? No, I smacked that shit shut. And I turned my attention back to Devil Baby, because what can be more important than a little girl talking like a big girl and the road unfurling before us both?

Not when there are things like this in the world to learn about. I never knew about Ama, or women of the sea. A 2000 year old tradition in coastal Japan, these beautiful hardy women would dive up to 25 meters with no equipment in search of seaweed, abalone, snails and other shellfish.

They had to maintain a certain amount of body fat to survive the frigid waters and would huddle together around bonfires to warm up between dives, eat and gossip. It was treacherous work, but Ama could make more money in a short 20 day season than a man could in a whole year. Plus, they got to hang out with their lady friends all day long. Ama were a hot commodity and sought after for marriage. They continued to dive deep into old age.

When goggles were invented at the turn of the century, Ama were early adopters, but mostly continued to dive only in shorts and cloths wrapped around their hair. There weren’t really any men around and diving in their skivvies afforded them more freedom and actually kept them warmer. Remember, they didn’t have lycra back then.

I’m struck by how strong and happy these women look. How free. Especially at a time when women the world over were still fighting to be heard (and are still). These gorgeous photos are the work of Iwase Yoshiyuki, who wrote of his beautiful subjects: “They carried the joys and sorrows of those living with the sea . . . I immersed myself in their world.”

Stunning.

STUH. NING.

I’m not sure when it happened or how it happened, but we have become a soccer family. We started out doing the sweet recreational soccer teams at the parks with Saint James when he was four, one thing led to another, the boy fell hard for the game, and we followed him over the abyss like a family of lemmings. Until now, it’s been all about Saint James. Supergirl also went through the parks’ soccer programs and we tried our best never to let on that her games were in any way less important or fun to watch as Saint James’, when truth be told, they were. As the Minneapolis United boys’ legs grew long and strong, as their feet got as quick and nimble as fingers, their games have gotten to be really really cool to watch – nail biting, heart wrenching, and beautiful. Her games were cute and itty bitty in contrast. We scarcely noticed how good she was.

Supergirl came out of the gate knowing what to do. Where Saint James’ first couple seasons had Dash and I shrugging our shoulders and painfully joking to each other that maybe sports weren’t going to be his thing, what with all the break dancing and donkey kicks he was doing out on the field, Supergirl was focused, aggressive and coordinated. Sure she had spent countless hours on the sidelines, arguably picking up the rules of the game, the point of the game, but she never appeared to be paying attention. She was always in a tree or running around with other younger dragged-along siblings.

This year we asked her if she wanted to try out for Minneapolis United. She would be playing up by a year, but since Saint James did it, we figured she should have the chance. She thought about it for days and days. Playing MU, assuming she made a team, would mean saying goodbye to playing with her guy friends on the park team. It would mean more practices, winter training – just more soccer. I got the sense that she was hesitant to try-out because she didn’t want to commit to all it entailed. There was also a little bit of fear – fear that she wouldn’t make it at all.

Consistent with her ability to surprise us at every turn, she made the top team and her fate was sealed. She was proud. And she was playing MU. I watched her first game on Sunday, and I don’t know if it was the fact that I was alone (Dash and Devil Baby were at Saint James’ game across town), the fact that it was a spectacularly gorgeous day, or the fact that I was feeling a wee bit fuzzy around the brainy bits after a late night, but I felt about ready to weep at the sight of these girls going at it as hard as they were. We played Plymouth, who were all giant blonds with matching head bands and backpacks perfectly lined up along the sidelines like menacing black tombstones. We got creamed. But our girls played with so much heart and sweetness and toughness that I could scarcely contain myself.

Girls bring such a different energy to their sports. They hesitate just a titch too long if someone takes a tumble. They say sorry after collisions. They talk to their parents on the sidelines if the play brings them close. But make no mistake, they are no less intense. No less fierce, no less swift, graceful and powerful. It’s just different and as much as I adore watching Saint James’ team play, I am beside myself about these girls. Go girls! Go!!!

This is my kind, my ken, my kin.

And I cannot wait – I simply cannot wait – to see where this goes for my Supergirl.

I hadn’t thought about my relationship to organized sports for decades until a couple years ago when I dropped Saint James off at his first winter training session. As he trotted off to join his team, I spotted a group of girls, maybe 16 years old, warming up. Some were  stretching, some were casually kicking balls back and forth. I wanted to watch Saint James, but my eyes kept straying to the girls, to their strong legs, their glossy hair tied up in all manner of ways. They were so loose in their bodies, so completely unaware of themselves. They were without guile, without self consciousness or worries. They were, in a word, happy. I know it sounds preposterous, but I know a happy girl when I see one. A few of them started to bust out a couple dance moves and then collapsed on each other laughing and my heart just about broke. That was me. That was my youth. That was the last time I felt like I really truly could do anything. I stood at the sidelines, my eyes darting between the tiny boys and the big girls, trying my hardest not to look like a perv, but I couldn’t drag myself away.

I realized something then that I didn’t know when I was a girl: that girls need sports more than boys. Boys will get their sports, no matter what. If there is a ball, any ball, they will pick it up, hold it in their palms. They will dribble it, kick it, balance it on their feet or index finger. If it’s tiny and bouncy they will zing it against the nearest wall and see what happens, inadvertently figuring out the physics of force and angles. They will run and jump, finding the best and fastest way to move their bodies through space. They will compete, keep score, triumph, spit on the ground in disgust. They will woop and puff their chests out. Their cheeks will burn with shame and they will have no choice but to prove themselves all over again. All manner of life lessons will be learned, just because boys and the lives we lead, are hardwired a certain way. On the other hand, but for the rare exception, girls don’t go nuts for hoops and nets, sticks, pucks and balls. It doesn’t take long for them to come away from the games on the blacktop and cluster in groups, wrapping themselves in words. They start to pay attention to pop culture and how they look. They start to sing, make up dances, read, jump rope and gossip. Without organized sports – the teams, the practices, the schedules – girls would move on to other things and lost would be the pounding hearts and throbbing lungs, the sisterhood and that feeling of total power: power over your body and the way you can and can choose to move it through the world.

I love girls’ athletics. As someone of the post Title IX era, I got to take sports for granted, I never had to fight for the right to play. Anything I wanted was available to me through my schools and I had the luxury of saying yes or no. But mostly I said yes. I played tennis, volleyball and lacrosse in high school and some of my best friends, my best memories are tied to being on those teams. In many ways, who I am and what I’ve done may stem from those years of competitive sports, and I wasn’t even that good. Here is an interesting article from the NY Times on this. Last year, when I wrote about hurting my knee in high school, I wrote about the feeling of invincibility that is borne of youth sports and I cannot think of a better reason for girls to play (or dance, or ski, or figure skate for that matter). Yes, it’s good for their health. Yes, it keeps them out of trouble. Yes, it looks good on college applications. But it’s the sisterhood of strength that makes it so damn worthwhile. When a girl competes, she’s not thinking about how her body looks, what her body can’t do. The mind/body connection is severed, for a bit, so that a girl can fly, fly away from self doubt, from glossy magazine photos and impossible standards, and just fly.

It’s funny how you can go years and years and years and never once think about the fact that as humans, we go through two entire sets of teeth. But then you have a couple of elementary school-age kids and woah, all of a sudden, it’s ALL ABOUT wiggly teeth, triumphant extractions, bloody smiles, the tooth fairy and let’s be frank, cashola.

A couple days ago Saint James lost a tooth, one of his eye teeth, when biting into a sausage sandwich. Blame it on that crusty French bread. He dutifully tucked it into the shirt pocket of the mouse on the tooth pillow and under his pillow. The Tooth Fairy managed to show up, but she’s wondering, as the number of teeth rattling around in her jewelry box increases by the day, is this just getting gross? It seems so cruel to toss them, yet, aside from their almost unbelievably teensy wheensy size, they aren’t all that attractive to keep around. And will they really want these when they are older? Like, would I want my baby teeth? I’m thinking no. And aside from throwing them out or stashing them, what else could you do? Bury them? Yikes, that has scandalous murder investigation and false imprisonment written all over it! For the love of God! Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT bury any teeth in your backyard! I keep thinking about that service that turns your cremated loved one into a diamond, but I have no time for the size of the diamond I’d scrape out of these tiny teeth. Now if that Arkansas woman with the 17 kids saved all the teeth, she might just be able to cobble together something worth flashing around the neighborhood Walmart. And not for nothing, but once you get beyond the front teeth, they actually do get bigger. It’s starting to feel a little ritualistic, even Jeffrey Dahmerish to keep collecting all these teeth. If I was some freaky potter, I would make an abstract sculpture representing the yin and yang of motherhood and I would stud it with all the baby teeth, but, alas, I am not. What do you do with the baby teeth?

We got hit by World Cup fever. Felled by World Cup fever. There was even a full on altercation between Doctor Dash and me spawned by World Cup fever. I’m missing those footballers now that it’s over. In any event, check out these beautiful images of the beautiful game.

I feel like parenting is all about pressing the re-set button. Every day, multiple times a day, fighting your way through the bickering and the rushing around and the whining and the melted popsicle on the counter (grrr) and the muddy footprints on the carpet (double grrr) to the root of how you really feel about your children. We all have our ways of reminding ourselves that we love them, that we are lucky to have them and that every day that they are healthy and happy, is a blessing indeed. A good night’s sleep works wonders. Sitting down to crank out a bit of creative work does too. But the topper for me is yoga. Today, I walked into yoga feeling like Mommy Dearest, sweat out about a gallon of white wine and nitrates, and emerged feeling like June friggin’ Cleaver. After a quick shower, I got to pick up my laptop (yay!) and some new shades (double yay!), stopped to grab a little grub at The Good Earth and ate in my car in blissful silence, save the sound of the pelting rain. This took no more than two and a half hours and I came home feeling like whatchu got, kids? Who wants a bagel? Watermelon? Cookies?! Who wants to play checkers?! Who wants to dance?! Whatchu got, my beautiful babies? Whatchu got for your mama because she’s feeling good!

For the next few hours, anyway.