cat named pig

[Warning: If you are currently debating whether or not to have a second child, please be advised that when you read this, you might spontaneously ovulate.] 

Yesterday at the park, Siena, her friend Jackson, and Elliot were all going down this wide bumpy slide together, with Elliot in the middle. Over and over. Elliot was loving the fact that he could do what the bigger kids were doing. He could not get enough of that slide. Each time they went down, Siena carefully made sure Elliot was all situated in the middle before they started moving. And each time Elliot went down by himself, she stood at the bottom and caught him. She would even give him a kiss on the head each time she lifted him down.

I just stood there in a puddle of my melted heart and watched this for a while, kind of amazed that Siena even wanted to play with her brother for so long. Usually at the park she’s too busy pushing imaginary friends on the swings or playing with other (non-imaginary) big kids. But then it got even better. . . .

A couple of boys, one about Siena’s age and one older, showed up and ran right for the same slide. I moved a little closer, just in case one of them should accidentally jostle Elliot while he was at the top. But I didn’t need to worry. Siena, standing at the bottom to catch her brother, held up her hand and said, “WAIT — my little brother’s gonna go, then you can go.” And the other kids waited. 

Just thinking about that little display of big-sister-protectiveness brings a smile to my face. I picture them in a few years, Elliot starting kindergarten with Siena there to hold his hand on the way into school. And then Elliot starting college with Siena there to send him care packages (or buy beer for him and his friends). I’m glad they have each other. 

At home, they fight like cats and dogs siblings, grabbing toys from each other and crying for me when the wrestling turns into Ultimate Street Fighting. But they also build block towers together, and she reads board books to him, reciting the words from memory as he turns the pages. And when either of them wakes up in the morning, or comes home from somewhere, the first question is always, “Where’s Elliot?” or in Elliot’s case, “NENA?” You know they’re thrilled to see each other. And then they start fighting. 

When we thought about having a second child, we expected the fighting. And we expected, as parents, to be absolutely crazy about both of them, more love to share, the second one will be easier because we’ve done this before, blah blah blah. The things you focus on because you don’t want to think about the sleep deprivation and the diapers and the staggering amount of luggage it takes to leave the house with two children. But I don’t think I ever expected to see this much love between the two of them. If I had to pick a favorite part of being a mother of two, that would be it. Definitely worth all the sleepless nights, the eleventy-BILLION diaper changes, and the having to pack a rolling suitcase full of snacks and diaper wipes and crayons just to run to Walgreen’s for more diaper wipes. 

Hmm. So, Matt and I claim to be laid-back parents. The kind who aren’t all about preparing their children for college admissions with every preschool activity. We aren’t looking to enroll in any pre-professional performing arts programs, or put together a competitive “package” of grades, test scores and extracurriculars. Not at the age of four, anyway. 

We don’t want to be pushy stage parents or aggressive coaches who get in fights with other parents at children’s sporting events. I don’t care what Mozart could do at the age of three. (If it was anything less painful than bang every key at once and then switch the keyboard to a pre-set Bossa Nova beat that repeats endlessly, his parents were lucky people. Plus, they probably didn’t have a Cassio keyboard on their dining room floor.) We want to encourage our kids to explore, to try new things, to learn, to practice skills and get better, but also to just play and have fun.

So given all that, why does Siena’s fall schedule resemble the “Activities” section of a college application, as filled out by an anxious and over-extended high school senior?

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: bilingual preschool.

Tuesday nights: 90-minute music class.

Wednesday nights: dance.

Thursday nights: soccer.

Saturday mornings: swimming lessons.  

(Although when I look over the activities, I see a gap in the volunteer/community service arena. We’ll have to find a soup kitchen where she can serve meals, stat. Or, you know, sometime in the next thirteen years.)

And now, of course, she is begging us to add gymnastics to the list. After watching Shawn Johnson and “the pink girl” win gold medals, it’s all she can talk about. She needs to work on sticking her landings, though, if she wants to go to college on a gymnastics scholarship. Right now she falls on her side after every cartwheel, and that’s at least three-tenths of a point right there.  

Monday night: Sara (Avery’s mom, not sister-in-law) invited me to join some of her girlfriends at her quasi-bachelorette party, in preparation for her quasi-wedding this Friday. Actually, it’s a real wedding, small in scale but no less legally binding, so I guess there’s nothing quasi about it. Anyway, dinner at a Thai restaurant sounded way better than yet another night of grilling veggie burgers and trying to bathe both kids without flooding the bathroom. And going out on a Monday? Without kids? Who am I, Paris Hilton? Needless to say, I was excited.  

Dinner was amazing, delicious, and dream-fulfilling in that I got to taste the wine I had blogged about that very day, the one I had made a note to myself a year ago to look for because of its promised deliciousness and budget-friendliness. And it was good. So were the other six bottles. (It was at about bottle #6 that I began to realize maybe I was in for more than a simple Monday night dinner.)

About the time we would normally be putting Siena to bed, or bribing/cajoling/threatening her with toy loss if she does not stay in bed, I was instead stuffing the last bites of Panang curry into my mouth and eating a dessert involving bananas. That actually tasted good! I like bananas now, assuming they’re deep-fried and dusted with cinnamon.

About the time I would normally be falling into an Olympics-induced coma on the couch, we were heading to a bar to sit on the patio and play trivia. And about the time I would normally be getting ready for bed, some dude walking by on the street leaned over the fence and brushed the back of my hair with something in his hand. Something that we’re pretty sure turned out to be a packet of heroin (packet? What do you call it? I don’t know the street names for this stuff; it’s been a while since I’ve bought drugs from a random guy walking around outside a bar. “A while” being like, “in this lifetime.”) So that was different from the typical Monday at home.

When it appeared obvious that we weren’t winning the trivia, and after inscribing a matchbook with heartfelt messages for Sara (”What? Your mom is love you more?” “No, that’s not what it says”), we headed out. With me leaving my credit card and unpaid tab (total: one beer) at the bar. Because it has been that long since I’ve started a tab anywhere, I guess I’d forgotten how it’s done. Note to self for next time: you pay at the end of the night. Then you go home.  

So I went home, from Party World back to Family World, and made a microwave burrito to soak up any of that last (unpaid) beer that might haunt me the next morning, and went to bed.

The next day, I got to lead my family on a fun little adventure that started with us leaving Siena’s Preschool Welcome Day (where I tried to act like a totally mature, together parent) and heading back to the bar where I’d left my card. Matt waited with the kids while I ran in to pay for my beer and get my Visa back, which made me feel pretty rad, as did explaining to Siena why we were there in the first place. (”You know how you sometimes forget your toys at a friend’s house, or your sunglasses when we go to the pool? Well, sometimes grown-ups forget things too.” When they’ve been drinking. Actually, I forget stuff a lot, so she probably wasn’t that surprised.) 

Anyway, at least we got some Thai takeout on the way home. I can’t get enough curry. And Siena treated all the drug dealers and anyone else on the street to a top-of-her-lungs rendition of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” as we walked back to the car, so that was cool.

I like the idea of our computer’s “Stickies” feature, where you can leave notes to yourself on pretend Post-Its on the computer’s screen. Unfortunately, it appears I’ve been neglecting a crucial step in actually using these as reminders to myself: the step of looking at them ever again after I type the reminder. Apparently, I just type out whatever I deem important enough to put on a Sticky, then leave it to languish indefinitely on the desktop, buried under 900 other pages that I “need to keep open” until I finish them. It makes for a fun game of trying to guess what I meant when I made the notes in the first place. Here’s a list, word for word from my Stickies:

1. “Elliot sea monster. Siena zookeeper.” I vaguely remember that when Elliot was learning to crawl (shows how old that note is) his awkward creeping motions resembled a sea monster undulating through the water. And the Siena zookeeper part is obvious — that remains an ongoing obsession/career destination.

2. “Siena — dance obsession, particularly Irish Dance. Looking at picture of SATC cast: ‘Are the Irishers, Mama?’” Siena’s older cousin used to do Irish Dance; it came up in conversation somehow and we YouTubed some videos of the lines of dancers with arms linked and only their legs moving. When she later saw me looking at a site with a promotional photo for the Sex and the City movie, presumably showing Carrie and Friends with arms around each other, it totally made sense that she would ask if they were Irish Dancers. Or even better, Irishers.

3. “Siena looking at Tio Matt’s picture of haircut: ‘You mean he got his hair cut in LA? Maybe everyone did?’ ” To a four-year-old who’s only ever seen her uncle with impressive dreads, it’s probably quite a shock to see him with short hair. It seems plausible that he would do something so drastic only as part of a mass hair-cutting event involving the entire population of Los Angeles.

4. Copied and pasted from a long-lost review: “Gazela Vino Verde from Portugal, a slightly effervescent, low-alcohol wine that’s perfect for warm weather. (Hennepin Lake Liquors has had it on sale for $4.99 a bottle.)” Hmm. Still haven’t tried this wine, probably because its name is recorded on a Sticky on my computer, which I never seem to have with me when at the liquor store, darn it. But the $4.99 price tag is appealing, as is the “perfect for warm weather” description. Perhaps it’s worth transferring this information to an actual sticky note that I can put in my purse and consult next time I’m wine shopping.

Time to go rethink my Notes To Self strategy.

In list format, because there is no other logical way to tie these together: 

1. Wanna know what Barbie’s first word was, according to Siena? “Sweet corn! Sweet corn! Sweet corn!” Her second word? “Candy treat! Candy treat! Candy treat!”

2. Sometimes I blog about other people’s children. Sara just sent me the following in an e-mail: 

 Avery was just using the bathroom and it was silent.  So I asked, “are you pooping?”  Long pause…. “yes, at least I’m trying to!”  Short pause, marked by grunts of concentration, followed by, “Mama, I won’t give up!”  And then she pooped.

I wish I could apply that kind of determination and dedication to everything that I do.  Let this be a lesson to all of us.

3. I’ve been calling Elliot “Smushy” for a while, because, well, he is. It recently morphed into “Dr. Smushins,” which Siena adopted for a few days, but then I guess she got tired of her brother having such an awesome nickname. She suggested yesterday that we “not call him that anymore until the fall, OK, Mama? Let’s just call him Elliot.”

4. And finally, Elliot sometimes tells stories. They all have roughly the same plot: someone, like a baby or a toy horse, goes up, up and then falls: “BOOM!” Acted out with lots of grunts, dramatic arm raises and crashing motions to accompany the BOOM.   

Elliot has recently discovered books. To be more accurate, he’s discovered the joy of reading, rather than merely chewing on, books. This means that any time you sit down for five seconds in our house, he will grab the nearest book and smash it into your face while he tries to scramble into your lap. 

We now read the classic Goodnight Moon to him at every bedtime and naptime. His favorite part is the kittens, which he must point out on every page where they are pictured. The pages not showing kittens are worthless to him; best to rush through those as quickly as possible. But take your time reading the kitten pages. You’ll need time, because you have to read the words on the page but also let him point to the kittens and say, “DAAAAAAH” (his word for cat) several times. And if you try to move on without repeating it back to him: “Yes, cat,” he will just say “DAAAAAH, DAAAAAH” more loudly and frantically until you finally respond. And then he’ll nod in approval, as though you were the one who was supposed to guess the animal on the page.

A while ago, I posted a picture of my younger brother (Siena insists on calling him my big brother, because he is taller than me). We call him Tio Matt around here, and this is what he’s looked like since Siena can remember:

Actually, this photo doesn’t even reveal the full magnificence of the waist-length dreads. The look was a conversation starter, to say the least. It’s a shame we don’t have a better picture of The Dreads, for lo and behold, they are gone: 

My “big” (but twenty-pounds-of-hair-lighter) brother’s band, The Library, can be found here if you feel like dancing.

Maybe someday they’ll change their URL so I can tell Siena what Tio Matt’s website is called, without facing a slew of awkward questions. In the meantime, you can also find them by typing www.thelibrarymusic.com. Click “Demonstration Tape” at the top for songs that will change your life. Or make your hair grow. Or something.   

For dessert tonight, Siena got to choose a piece of candy from the hideous assortment of sticky, stale Costco-grab-bag candy that we bought for her birthday party. (I don’t know why we buy stuff we would never normally buy when it’s for a party — it’s like we don’t want people to know what Sugar Puritans we are or something. Incidentally, my friend Sara actually brought her own sugar to our house the other day, to make Avery a piece of cinnamon toast for a snack. She seriously doubted we’d have any on hand, so she just brought her own. My mom is wiping tears of pride from her eyes as she reads this.)

Anyway, Siena deliberated for a long time over which piece of oozing-out-of-its-wrapper high fructose corn syrup would best fulfill her vision of the Perfect Dessert. And Elliot stood next to us growing increasingly agitated by all the colorful candy wrappers that I kept moving out of his reach. He finally reached into the bowl and grabbed a mini-Twizzler packet, clutching it with the dreaded Toddler Death Grip, where the only way it is leaving his hands is via surgical intervention or a messy tantrum. 

Siena asked me if he was old enough to have dessert.

“No, he can’t eat that, but he can hold onto it for a minute while you decide what you’re having.”

Forty-five minutes later, Siena’s carefully selected Tootsie Roll is long gone, and Elliot is still walking around joyfully crinkling the wrapper of the mini-Twizzler. He holds it up to his face, lovingly examines it, cradles it against his cheek, brushes his nose with the stiff end of the wrapper. Not once do I see him put it in his mouth. He might not even realize it’s food. In my opinion, it does not actually qualify as food, so that’s just fine.

But one day he will read this, and if he’s old enough to read he will be old enough to know what Twizzlers are. And he’s going to be totally pissed that I not only denied him a dessert but laughed as he walked around caressing the wrapped candy for almost an hour. He’s going to use this to demand that I buy him an iPod Uber-Micro, or whatever the kids of the future are listening to. And I’m going to be all, “You used to be so easy-going. You used to not even care if you had pants on.” Which will just make him more angry.  

The following is an e-mail I sent out to some of my girlfriends, way back when Elliot was too little to run over to the cat, grab her tail, and sit down on her back like he’s riding a horse. Also known as The Good Old Days. But not really that good all the time — read on:

Since most of you are considering having some babies at some point in your lives, I thought it would be responsible of me to share the story below as a glimpse into the reality of motherhood. I am NOT trying to change anyone’s mind about reproducing, just trying to make sure my friends are fully prepared for what may come. . . .

The other day I was sitting/lying in bed holding Elliot, who had just finished a big meal, burped, and fallen asleep. It was one of those perfect new-baby moments where I was half-asleep myself and just thinking about how nice it was to sit there and hold my sweet sleeping baby, and how when he’s in junior high and won’t let me talk to him in public, much less hug him, I will totally look back on this as the best time ever.

And then I was thinking about how warm he was, and how he was making my arm and stomach really warm where he was lying on me. . . so warm I was starting to get sweaty. Which is weird because I don’t sweat that much — so I think to myself, maybe he is sweaty? Something defintely feels damp. (You might guess where this is going. . . .) Since I was so tired, it took me WAY too long to realize that the dampness was actually damp yellow baby poop oozing out of his diaper, onto my arm and shirt and all over both of us and the bed.

AWESOME. 

Matt came upstairs as I was cleaning us up and took a good long look at the situation, then grabbed the remote from where it had been sitting next to me on the bed (rescuing it from possible poop contamination?) and changed the channel from what I had been watching.

That’s right, he took advantage of me being up to my elbows in poop and changed the channel on me. And if you’re thinking that he then took over cleaning up the baby so I could scrub poop out of the folds of skin on my belly (many, many folds from skin that was recently stretched more than should be humanly possible, all to accommodate this baby, who just pooped on me) — well, he did not. He sat down in the arm chair, well away from all the mess, and watched TV.

When I asked/commanded him to change the channel back to the life-enriching reality competition I was watching (because why read to your kid when you can further his language development just as well by letting him listen to catty girls compete to be America’s Next Top Sidebar in US Weekly?), my husband actually said “No, I’m watching this.”

[Just to be fair, this IS the same husband who massages my back while I am sitting up in bed at 2:00 a.m. breastfeeding — and he also brought me a milkshake the other day completely out of the blue (unlike every other day since Elliot was born, when I call Matt and ask him to pick up milkshakes on his way home, and then call again six more times to see if he actually is doing it). Which explains why I didn’t divorce him over the remote control/poop incident.]

On another note, this morning — I caught Siena licking the window. Not breathing on it like you might do in winter to make it fog up so you can draw on it with your finger — no, just full-out licking the glass with her tongue. I won’t mention how long it’s been since we washed the windows (because I’m afraid of your judgment) but it has definitely not happened recently. Nor have we had Siena evaluated by a doctor recently, but now I’m thinking both of those might be good things to do. Who knows what else she’s been licking? Cleaning the whole house might even be necessary if this behavior continues.

So that’s a little bit of what it’s like, one month into being a parent of two. In closing, I hope you all have many babies and I also hope you learn from my experiences enough to

1) remember that the warm feeling could be more than just body heat when you’re holding the babies, and

2) always take the remote with you whenever you get up, or risk not seeing who gets eliminated from your favorite show, and

3) wash your windows!

xoxo,

Laura 

1. English

2. German

3. Spanish

4. Spanglish (OK, so maybe this was just me.)

5. Japanese  

This is why I love our neighborhood.

I feel like this sort of multi-lingual thing happens all the time in Europe (and probably in bigger American cities). People routinely ask each other which languages they speak, and choose the one both parties are most comfortable using. On more than one occasion, I’ve received detailed French directions while traveling in Italy or Spain. But aside from Spanish, I don’t expect that as much around here. Minnesota has sometimes seemed to me like the Land Where High School Language Skills Go To Die. Everyone I know can ask how you are and whether you enjoy the cinema in their high school language, but actual conversation? Not so much. (Myself included — my high school Spanish disappears into a Franco-Italian non-conjugated mess the second I try to talk to our Spanish-speaking neighbors.)

I think all that is changing, though. I think more people are traveling, working and living abroad. Schools are offering languages earlier, when kids are best able to learn them. The schools we are looking at for Siena offer Spanish from kindergarten on. It was interesting to talk to the mother raising her kids in Japanese about the Spanish program at her daughter’s elementary school. 

And who knows? Maybe it was always like this in Minneapolis, just not in the suburb I grew up in. In any case, it makes for a more interesting block party.