peevish mama

I can’t let June slip through my fingers without bloggishly wishing Devil Baby a happy fourth birthday. Her birthday on June 11th came and went in the midst of my laptop catastrophe and a trip to Michigan to celebrate El Maestro de Bife’s graduation from his surgical residency and Golden’s graduation from med school (well done, lads!). I’m not sure there’s ever been such a hotly anticipated birthday on my part. Her threes were, uh, challenging to say the least and I’m hoping her fours will yield a new era of peace. Yes, fourteen year old Devil Baby who may be reading this someday, you pretty much bossed me around and kicked my ass almost every day of your third year. Now, go clean your room. Just kidding. I love you. No, let me rephrase that: I love you, but you still need to clean your room.

Back to present, my little lass couldn’t have been sweeter. She reveled in all the attention and I saw this sort of sweet, shy, girlie side of her I hadn’t seen before. She got mermaid barbies, sparkly hair clips and pretty sundresses all of which she opened while beaming, coyly. Folks, I think we’ve got a girly girl and we are ready to run with it. My sweet little devil, my headstrong, willful, and now girly girl: if you keep working both of those angles, you, my dear, will be unfreakingstoppable!

I love you. I love you. Here’s to being four years old and fabulous!

I can’t believe I’m married to a 40 year old man. Never mind that he’s more smokin’ now than he was at the age of 20 when we met. Sigh. Damn these men and their flattering aging and crinkly eyed distinguished good looks. Happy Birthday Doctor Dash! Happy happy happy! This little family we’ve created – this little family loves and adores you. This little family is lucky to call you their Papa Bear. And me? Well, I’m damn lucky too.

Besos, mi amor.

A few weeks ago Doctor Dash was reading through some of the earlier nuggets in this blog and he told me that he loved remembering the stuff I had written about. It was a curious statement to me because I’ve only been doing this for a couple years. How much could he have forgotten? The truth is, we forget a lot. We forget most of the little details – the favorite t-shirts, the silly stories, the chatter after the tooth fairy visits, the white lies, the fights, the tears, the giant mosquito bites. We forget the minutiae, and without the minutiae, our memories are flat, colorless, or worse yet, not there at all. I can’t figure out any rhyme or reason to what sticks. And the firsts with our firsts tend to be clearer than the firsts with our seconds and thirds. I can’t remember Supergirl’s first steps, but I remember Saint James’ like they were yesterday. And I actually do remember Devil Baby’s, but that’s just because we were hoping and praying that she would be soothed by her new found locomotion, that some of the energy she spent screaming at us would be redirected to moving her chunky little legs.

This blog started out as a way for me to slow down time, to take notice of the quotidian, to be present. It is only now, after the passage of a couple years, that we’ve discovered that it also helps us remember. I don’t go back and read, but you’d better believe that someday I will. And I think that my kids will too. So, with that in mind, some minutiae:

Supergirl finally lost some teeth. We seem to spawn late teeth getters, hence late teeth losers. With each baby, we would wonder, gazing at their gummy drooly mouths, whether they would ever get teeth. As Saint James’ and Supergirl’s first birthdays approached (yes, we even kinda freaked the second time around), Doctor Dash took to the internet and I put my ear to the ground. I sorely regretted it when my neighbor, in her Texas drawl, said “Well, ah don’t know, but mah cousin had needle teeth.” NEEDLE TEETH! I gasped. I love their tenacious baby teeth, but my kids hate it. In kindergarten and first grade when their classmates are spitting out teeth left and right, my children frustratedly wiggle their tiny pearlies, hoping in vain for some movement. Supergirl was literally one of the last three kids in her grade to lose a tooth. (It’s incredible that I even know this, but I do. How many times did I invoke those other two names in an attempt to cheer her up about her stubborn baby teeth?) We went to Michigan and she managed to lose three teeth in two days, maximizing the attention as Supergirl is wont to do. Her big teeth are already growing in. Her face will change. I only wish she could keep that little Jack-o-lantern smile for a while longer, because as far as I’m concerned, those big chompers are a one way ticket to big kidhood.

When I started this post it was a nothing kind of afternoon. The kids were dressed for soccer with some time to kill and in the rarest and loveliest of moments had started playing a peaceful game of chess, unbidden by me. This is the kind of thing that would make me roll my eyes if I were reading it, so I’ll assure you that they aren’t usually this highbrow and civilized. Normally when they’re bored they turn on the T.V., play Wii, google Justin Bieber or fight. Supergirl also has this move where she lies on the ground and whines about how bored she is while using her legs to spin herself around like a clock hand. But just this once, on a muggy afternoon, with a basket of folded laundry lurking in the corner, they played chess. I grabbed my camera and just like that, minutiae became memory.

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.

Hello my pretties. I’ve posted another article at Simple Good and Tasty about road trip food and it includes Tartare’s recipe for granola. Tartare, you gonna be famous!

I’m still here. All is well. I have much to report, much to celebrate and digest, but I have no laptop at the moment. Saint James + intriguing toy wrapped in plastic + coffee cup = no laptop for mama. And since my chitlins are all up in my business all the time, requiring food and rides and sunscreen at all hours, I can’t very well duck into Doctor Dash’s man cave to use the desk top. Night times are simply not an option. I am falling asleep as I type.

I leave you with a question. At what age does a girl begin to notice when her swimsuit is stuck in her butt? I don’t know the answer, but I do know the answer is not four. As if I don’t spend enough of my life sunscreening the porcelain-skinned Devil Baby, now I need to watch out for her adorable, chunkalicious bootay because sister has got a wedgie, like, ninety percent of the time.

G’night.

Hopefully you’ve gotten out to a farmers market this season, or will soon. It’s still early, but the scallions, for one, are giant hunkering beasts and I’ve been working my way through a bunch all week. Read about it here at Simple Good and Tasty. Enjoy, homeys!

On the last day of preschool, the teachers give  you all the stuff that’s been hanging on the walls: the laminated balloon with your kid’s birthday, the froggy with your kid’s name, the self portraits with giant smiling heads and stick bodies with too many fingers, and, apparently, the conversation bubbles from their unit on “jobs.” How did I miss this? How did I not know that my youngest child aspires to be a truck driver and a hair stylist? How does she even know about these jobs? It actually makes sense – marrying the princess with the brute aspects of her personality. It’s also a good idea when you think about it. If you botch someone’s hair, well, that’s a good time to hit the open road, leaving the mullets, pink hair and fried perms behind you like so many broken hearts. And just think of all those truck drivers, slumped behind sludgy cups of coffee and gelatinous wedges of pie, who could use a fresh and sassy little trim. She may single handedly put an end to trucker caps! I’m so proud.

In other crumpled up paper news, I found a well worn and folded piece of loose leaf on the counter which is always intriguing to me. Sometimes it’s a spelling test, but just as often it’s the bylaws for a secret club, or drawings of aliens, or the beginnings of a story, or a menacing letter to a sibling (keep your pows (sic) of (sic) my things!) I opened it up to discover a score sheet for a “DANCE OFF” which listed nearly all of the kids in Saint James’ class. They had some tough judges, as no one got more than 10 out of 30 points, except for a couple of boys. Saint James was listed as a “bonus feature” and when I asked him about it he shrugged: I didn’t want to be judged. I just wanted to dance. If you ask me, truer words were never spoken. I’m so proud.

And finally, you might want to keep your eyes peeled for a certain shady character named Norm G. Don’t be fooled by the bow tie and the little stache – this dude is baaaad. Honestly, I cannot imagine how Supergirl comes up with this stuff, but it amuses me, it really does.

We’re just galloping towards the end of school and this most kick ass time of year is flying by. If you took a venn diagram with one circle being school and one circle being summer, we’re in the intersecting area that is defined by sunshine, staring out the window, sweatiness, rowdiness, popsicles, field day, and a general slide-on-into-home attitude. I love it. I’ve always loved it. I never went to a school with air conditioning and neither do my kids. Somehow their damp brows and flushed faces at the end of the school day are all part of the charm. You can practically hear the drum beats: Sum-mer! Sum-mer! Sum-mer!

In the midst of all of this, I got to fly off on a secret mission last week: Operation Babe-o-matic, Part II, to be specific. Sunny turned 40 and her hilarious husband, Tax Man Italiano, managed to plan a giant surprise party without her knowing. Of course, the Babe-os shimmyied and shammyied and sashayed in the door about 40 minutes after Sunny’s first heart attack of the evening, sending her into a second surprised near-swoon. It was tremendously fun and a comforting reminder that somethings never change. When Sunny’s 180 friends had cleared out, the five of us were still standing, dancing around with beers, feeling like we were 20 again. (Actually, I should say 6 of us because Meester Panqueques was an honorary Babe-o for the night, kindly fetching Dolly and me at the airport, driving us to the party in amused near-silence while Tartare, Dolly and I shrieked and chatted and dove right in in that way that friends do when there is very little time.) I’m only including a small photo because . . . how can I put this delicately? There would be no reason to subject you to our shiny happy late-night-good-time faces. No reason at all. It was a lightening quick trip – less than 24 hours, but so much fun, so very very good for my soul. My only regret is that I’m always left feeling bereft that these soul sisters of mine scattered like seeds in the wind after college, and not a one of them managed to land near me.

And speaking of seeds, yesterday time slowed down twice for me, and both times, it was in a garden. First, Doctor Dash and I had a really juicy hour with a “garden coach” from Bachmans Nursery named Suzanne. She showed up at our house and she didn’t waste any time in plunging into our perennial garden to give us the lay of the land. We found out all sorts of stuff. Now we know we have two horrid invasive buckthorn trees that need to be removed asap (actually, it’s already done – Doctor Dash could also aptly be renamed Doctor Bushwhacker). We also now know that we should be fawning over a beautiful lacy drapey Pagoda Dogwood because we are “lucky to have such a specimen.” We know where to move the hydrangea that is languishing in the shade and the bleeding heart that is getting the shit kicked out of it over in soccer terrain. We know which hostas are next for being divided and recolonized and what to do with the crazy rose bush that’s turned aggressive, hanging its thorny branches into the yard in the hopes of catching some tender child flesh. We now know what is weed and what is hearty native growth. We even know what to put in Melancholy Corner and that, my friends, is something that has eluded us since we moved into this house. Suzanne was knowledgeable, witty, and best of all, pragmatic. I feel like we can do this now. We can make our garden even more beautiful, piece by piece, plant by plant, season by season.

As soon as I was finished with Suzanne, I raced off to school to drive Supergirl and a few of her friends to Waite House, the food shelf that our school collects food for all year long. The first graders were going to deliver and plant the vegetables they had grown from seed in the Waite House garden. The garden will be tended by the Waite House volunteers and the families who utilize the services. There were enough kids to do most of the planting so I mostly got to watch and listen and I have to say, it was lovely. We didn’t need “one more thing” to go do, but I’m so glad we did this. Not only did they plant tons of tomatoes, beans, peppers and herbs, they pretty much lined the perimeter of the chain link fence with sunflowers and other ornamentals. I am so grateful to their teachers for realizing that there is no end to the good that can come of this – the planting, the waiting, the giving, the digging, the beautifying. It’s all so good for our guys and hopefully there will be many families eating delicious tomatoes later this summer; tomatoes that started out as seeds in cups on an elementary school floor.

You know what I said before? Like, yesterday? Well, fuggedaboutit. In the last twelve hours I’ve gone to Devil Baby’s spring concert and Supergirl’s spring concert and both were so dear, so sweet, so filled with chubby arms and tiny voices in the case of the former, boisterous joy and proud smiles in the case of the latter, that I take it all back about the too much. We can never have too much of this. This is what it’s all about. Some day, breathtakingly soon, we will have no more of these precious little concerts. So I drink it in, wishing there was some way to bottle the joy of children singing. Wouldn’t that be something!

I know I have a teensy little habit of taking something I’m experiencing and projecting it on the whole world, but something is definitely up. All my friends are feeling all freaky deaky, and quite frankly, so am I. We’re careening toward the end of the school year and I feel like we’re all driving runaway cars, pumping the breaks to no avail. Where did the time go? It feels like we were just wiping our brows after putting Christmas away and here we are in a deluge of end of the year obligations. Seriously, could we possibly pile on more stuff right now? End of the year masses, field day, plays, spring concerts, class picnics, graduations, class parties and on and on. On the one hand, it’s absolutely lovely. On the other hand, we may be getting too much of a good thing here. Everybody I know is racing around clutching camcorders with crazed smiles plastered on their faces which do nothing to hide the panic lurking in their eyes.

Yep, PANIC. Because in a few weeks we are ON, babies. ON. ON. ON. 24-7. Children all up in your business ALL THE TIME. No breaks, except for whatever camps and activities you’ve managed to sign them up for, which will require more running around with crazed smiles and more yelling hurry up, grab your waterbottleballracquetfishingrodclubscleatsclarinetloom.

I am really of two minds here. On the one hand, I love summer. I love the sun, the heat, the water and the not having to do anything. But then I went and filled us with activities because I’m no fool – the idle is not idyll. The quiet lazy afternoons never pan out the way I envision them. We don’t sit in the shade and eat popsicles and draw and fish and read. Possibly because of the frenetic pace we keep during the rest of the year, my kids want action and adventure. Or T.V. And honestly, we don’t even do that much. I suppose it’s relative, but I DO draw the line sometimes. For example, I drew the line at Irish step dancing earlier this year because of the wigs. I also draw the line at fencing, curling and golf. I don’t like golf. I’m not sure it’s an environmentally sustainable sport – especially in the driest areas of our country. It seems elitist and I will run the risk of subjecting my kids to forever being shitty golfers, but if they want to learn they can learn on their own time and their own dime. Plus the outfits are not cute. I pat myself on the back about golf, but then I signed up Supergirl for another run at Circus Camp, because obviously, the trapeze is a life skill that will serve her well. I signed Saint James up for a month long Junior Naturalist program and a drawing class. Why? Because this is their bliss and what can I do, but follow their bliss? And this is how I get myself in this pickle of the anti-Huck Finn summer.

It’s a paradox and I’m making a huge muddle of trying to explain it, but here it goes.

I sign them up for stuff because I don’t want them to be bored and drive me crazy, but in the end I’m crazy anyway and maybe even contributing to their being bored by keeping us on the run all the time. On the other hand, I only sign them up for stuff they love. These lucky, privileged children just happen to have a lot of interests. Take all that and dip it in guilt for not being 100% perky about all of this because a) I chose this life; and b) shouldn’t I want to be with my kids more more more? and c) I’m damn lucky to even have this to complain about, so I should just shut the hell up. Right? Right.

So I, like many others, spent the last few weeks with the calendar, various program catalogues and a furrowed brow, trying to figure out the right amount of stuff to put in our long summer days and how to physically get everyone where they need to go at the times they need to be there. I won’t know, until I’m neck deep in it, whether I got the right proportions of free time to camp time. And by then my freakydeakiness will have worn off, to be replaced with a numb exasperation with myself and my kids. The days will seem hot and endless and long and then all of a sudden it will be late August and I’ll get all freaky again, dreading the crush of school and all that entails, looking back longingly on our summer that seemed to stretch like taffy, and I’ll wish to be back here, right where I am right now.

Guten tag! I published another piece at Simple Good and Tasty about The Black Forest Inn. Check it out, babies! Maybe you’ve been going all this time, or maybe, like me, you used to go all the time and haven’t gone in years. Well, I’m telling you it’s time to start going again. It’s the perfect place to take kids (lots to look at, pleasantly loud din, terrific kid friendly food options) while feeling like a grown up (fabulous patio, sexy lighting, awesome beer, handmade hearty food made with tons of local ingredients). Seriously, hurry!

Happy belated Mother’s Day to all you sweet mamas out there, including my very own sweet mama, Chuchi. I don’t know about you, but I love Mother’s Day – more than my birthday, more than Christmas, more than Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. Being a mother is something I cherish (despite periodic appearances to the contrary) and it feels good to be fêted for something I’ve earned. I didn’t have much to do with being born and although I suppose we deserve to be congratulated for having survived another year, I don’t feel as comfortable wallowing in all the attention surrounding my birthday. But Mother’s Day is another story altogether. All those unseen and unappreciated things we do to keep our families healthy and happy and together, to keep our homes warm and bright and joyful, to keep ourselves sane and healthy and open, it all does deserve some recognition. We deserve to step out from behind the camera, stove and steering wheel for a day. I say, bring it on, lovies. Bring on the homemade breakfasts (delicious, Doctor Dash). Bring on the flowers and cards and little clay bowls and necklaces and paintings and all the dear dear things that little kids make for their mamas for Mother’s Day. I love it all. I even love the short story penned by Supergirl called “The Butt.” Last year, Saint James wrote me a song on the piano. This year, I get “The Butt.” It’s not about my butt, mind you, but riveting nonetheless.

And although I haven’t been able to spend Mother’s Day with my own mom for years, I think she knows, hope she knows, how much she means to me and how much my parenting mirrors hers. My house isn’t nearly as clean as hers, but in so many other ways, in ways that I can’t help, in ways that I don’t even notice, my mother colors the way I go through my days with my kids. I’m not a mirror image of her, but rather, of the same ilk. As if a painter did a series of paintings, variations on a theme, with obvious, superficial differences, but with a common thread – but what is the thread? Soul? Disposition? Habits? I’m not sure I can put a finger on it, but it’s there.

I’m not a mother who hides her emotions from the kids. For better or worse, they hear about the dark and the light. I’m a mother who thinks sitting down together for home cooked meals every single day that it’s remotely possible matters a lot. I’m a mother who’s indulgent, who believes in treats and pleasures and the beauty of saying yes some of the time. I’m impatient in so many ways, but I try, mostly unsuccessfully, to quell that in myself. I like plants and sun and watching my kids play sports. I don’t say the rosary in the car like my mom did for my brother’s nail biter tennis matches, but I gasp and eek and cover my eyes with the best of them. I don’t put a premium on my own perfection, but I do value solidity, reliability, warmth. I don’t let them touch my sunglasses, but I do let them play with my shoes. I’m not very subtle about trying to influence my kids to love the things I love: music, books, food. I leave sports to Doctor Dash. And technology. I’m bad at making my kids do chores; bad at taking money from them when they promise to pay me back. I’m a distracted mother a lot of the time, until those moments when I’m not. Be present is my mantra and my greatest seemingly insurmountable challenge.

I don’t like labels like “good” and “bad” as applied to mothering because I can be both within a span of moments. Motherhood is nuanced and complex and nothing short of a million words will do to describe any one particular mother. A million words. Or maybe just one.

Love.

Happy Mother’s Day to Chuchi and to all you other mamas in the trenches with me.

I wrote an article over at Simple Good and Tasty about local legend and veggie queen, Jenny Breen. It was my first interview and I got to do stuff like smack a tape recorder on the table with an arch MAY I? No, I didn’t really do that. But I did say, Relax, honey, we’re off the record. Actually, I didn’t say that either. But I did bang away on a type writer, squinting through the smoke roiling off the cigarette dangling from my mouth. OK, not that either. I didn’t get to protect my sources, wear a trench coat, meet anyone in a dark bar, or flirt with a handsome weathered detective who’s seen it all, yet maintains a heart of gold. I didn’t even get to roll up my shirt sleeves. I guess I’ve seen too many movies.

Here’s St. James waiting anxiously to be scooped up for his very first ever weekend away. He’s beyond excited to be going to his oldest buddy’s cabin for a couple nights. I, on the other hand, wish I could have limbered up and climbed right into that little rolling suitcase. Instead I made him a sandwich to take with him.

I’m still in disbelief.

About the sandwich.

But I will say this:

It made me feel better.