cat named pig

In my head: It’s a lovely fall day; we’ll walk home from school. The kids will love crunching through the leaves.  

In reality: It’s a lovely fall day, and the kids go absolutely nuts for the crunchy leaves. Siena lifts big armfuls and then scientifically waits to feel the wind blowing before letting them go. Elliot’s technique is less precise: he grabs as many leaves as he can hold and lets them go immediately, screaming “EEEEE!” each time. It takes us fifteen minutes to cover one block. I think to myself, in all seriousness, that this, right here, this is why people have kids. Too happy to form any more actual thoughts, my inner monologue becomes a series of cliches. I feel young again, I see the world through their eyes, I delight with them in the colorful leaves crunching underfoot and blowing in the wind. I consider applying for jobs at Hallmark, but then I remember that they already make cards with most of these sentiments. Hmm. Maybe I should send “Happy Fall” cards to friends and family. 

Also in reality: We’re half a block from home when Siena’s foot starts hurting. Or itching. Or something. Something so terrible and life-threatening and agonizing that she can no longer walk. She literally starts crawling on the ground.

When I examine her foot, there is no sign of anything wrong with it. Her descriptions fail to paint a clear picture. Does it hurt? Or itch? How can you not be sure? 

I suggest she lean on my arm while we walk the last little way. She does so, complaining at the top of her lungs. “My FOOT!” OW! MY FOOT!” At the risk of sounding heartless, it was pretty obnoxious. (Wow. That does sound heartless. You’re probably picturing a dry, shriveled Craisin where my heart should be, but hold off on your judgment until I tell you that she did not mention her foot malady one single time from the minute we arrived home until she went to bed for the night. Not once. It was miraculously healed through the power of having something more interesting to think about. She played actively, threw several angry stomping fits over such indignities as having to wash her hands, before making brownies for crying out loud, and ruthlessly negotiated the terms of her dinner. And dessert. All in all, a totally normal evening for her. With no further sign of podiatric distress.)  

My point? I’m not sure, except that my goal here is to record the reality of our lives, not the edited, airbrushed, carefully cultivated “happy memories” only. Ten years from now, the image of her theatric moaning disrupting a blissful autumn scene will make me smile more than a sentimental description of a perfect afternoon possibly could. Because it’s so Siena, and my impatience is so me, and Elliot just tagging along contently, throwing leaves and occasionally looking over at his dramatic sister with a quizzical expression is so Elliot.

We’re who we are. And it was a beautiful fall day.   

Did you wonder about the Internet Silence from catnamedpig.com lately? Perhaps nothing interesting has been happening? Or perhaps after being duped and deceived by my daughter and her BFF (see previous post) I decided to just give up on documenting my various parenting mishaps for a while? No, none of that. Just a whirlwind, action-packed weekend trip to San Diego. . . . 

More details will be forthcoming, but two article deadlines and a day of air travel with small children have all but sapped my will to type. All but. So here is a brief list of highlights:

1. Air travel with two small children, while not something I’d recommend you try (if you are someone I care about) unless absolutely necessary (like, in order to be OUT of Minnesota for the first snow of the season — SCORE!) was not as horrible as it could have been. Was not horrible at all, in fact. Was more like a routine dental exam than the root-canal-without-anesthesia I had been anticipating. 

2. Four nights of parties, ending with a big Sunday night bash to celebrate my cousin Carla’s marriage to (my cousin-in-law?) Andy — a match made in curly-hair heaven. We are thrilled for them, and can’t wait to see what color of curly hair (for we know it will be curly) their offspring will have.

3. Avocado on everything. I mean, seriously, everything I ate.  

4. Seeing all my relatives on my dad’s side of the family. (Perhaps this one should have come before the one about avocado —  please note, if you are related to me, that this list is not in order of importance.) 

5. The San Diego Zoo.

6. The ocean.

7. The beautiful wedding celebration on the patio of a beautiful hotel overlooking the ocean. We were just a pumpkin’s throw away from the water. (More about that later. [But, if I forget later, I will just say that the party was decorated with many carved pumpkins and one giant monster pumpkin, and the beer and wine flowed freely all evening, and well, you can probably piece it together. Big Juanita Pumpkin and several of her smaller friends now sleep with the fishes.] I personally had nothing to do with this.) 

8. Seeing Tio Matt (my brother). Seeing Siena with her Tio — she absolutely adores him and was heartbroken when we had to say goodbye. We need more Tio. 

9.  Seeing our good college buddy Jamarr, who also drove down from LA on Saturday.

10. So. Many. Burritos. (With avocado.) 

That will have to do for now. Mostly, I am just filled with happiness from seeing so many loved ones at such a joyous event. Also, Siena even napped on the way home. Amazing. 

Siena and her No. One Partner in Crime, Avery, really pulled one over on us last night. Usually preschooler “tricks” are about as transparent as, well, I was going to say windows, but the ones around here are filthy, practically opaque, so not windows. Saran wrap? Anyway, when Siena has tried to trick me in the past, I’ve usually seen it coming a mile away. No problem. 

Which is why Sara and I were somewhat surprised last night by the sophisticated ruse they employed to get us out of the kitchen so they could drag a chair in and climb up to reach the candy jar on the counter.  

“There’s a show in the basement. . . right now! It’s only for girls, well I guess you can bring your little boy.” It started something like this, nothing out of the ordinary as we are invited to view “shows” of all kinds on a regular basis. Then it got more interesting. . . .”

Actually, the show isn’t happening but the toy museum is down there. You need to go watch the toy museum.”

Huh? I still don’t know. Thinking the toy museum might be some new variation on show (art installation, perhaps?) we grabbed Elliot and headed downstairs. When we got down there, we were puzzled to find nothing really resembling a show, or display of toys, or anything other than the usual mess. But Sara and I were discussing something really important, like why our husbands always leave the kitchen a smoldering wreck of a mess every time they cook, or maybe haircuts, so we didn’t really think much of the non-show, non-toy-museum.

Until I heard the sound of something heavy being dragged into the kitchen upstairs. Something heavy, like a chair. Then I understood. There was no show. No toy museum. Just a plot to get us out of the way so they could raid the candy jar.Sure enough, as we came upstairs Siena ran shrieking from the kitchen and Avery quickly hopped down from the chair clutching a handful of brightly wrapped something or other. We cornered her and she reluctantly handed over a fistful of chocolates. (Siena didn’t have anything; apparently she had been on lookout duty. And she revealed herself to be the kind of lookout who abandons her fellow criminal and runs for cover the minute the heat starts coming around the corner.) 

All I know is, they’ll have to come up with something better than that flimsy “toy museum” story next time they want to get us away from the candy. Unfortunately, I’m sure they will.  

[The following took place on our recent trip to Madison, Saturday night]:

Me: Sitting on the hotel bed, reading my homework for writing class: heartbreaking, gut-wrenching tales of motherhood and baby-loss and children’s hospitals. And then, because I’m already soaked in tears, going online to sweetsalty.com for more heartbreak and gut-wrench but also more beautiful prose. Reaching over to the empty pizza box next to the bed and rummaging around for the last silverware and napkin packet. Awkwardly ripping open the plastic wrapping with one hand while wiping my eyes and nose with the other hand, trying not to sniffle too loudly because the kids are sleeping in the other half of our two-room suite. . . .

Him: “OH! He fumbled!”

In the car, on the way to music class:

Siena: “Mama, do you know what will be really awesome?

Me [expecting to hear something about dessert, or maybe a game they might play at music tonight]: “What, Sweetie?”

 Siena: “I’m going to have a baby.” 

Ahem. Well. Upon re-reading my last post, it appears I was being something of a Complainy Plainerpants, as we call it around here. It’s just that the bookcase-to-human ratio Chez Catnamedpig has recently gone from a perfectly reasonable 1:1 to something like 17:1 or 89:1 and they’re all in the living room. Which was maybe making me a little crazy. I have since taken a deep breath and gotten over myself. 

Also? We had a wonderful weekend road-trip to Madison. Seriously, I never thought I would type a sentence with the words wonderful and road-trip without a big, fat, sarcastic  –NOT! at the end of it, but here I am, and it’s true. We had a great time. The kids slept in the car, at least long enough for everyone to maintain sanity, and we stayed in a hotel with a pool. Siena got to go swimming three separate times — pretty good for a one-night stay. We also attended a pre-wedding-day gathering at a bike shop, which meant Elliot got to buckle the chin straps on the entire inventory of bike helmets while the rest of us ate cake and chatted. 

On Sunday we joined a large group of scientists and cyclists to celebrate the marriage of “Mama’s silly friend Claire,” as she has been labeled since she visited us last spring, to David. It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony followed by a reception with live music and the best wedding food I’ve ever had (seriously, so good) — we didn’t want to leave, but eventually got tired of chasing the kids through the crowded reception hall.

We hopped in the car and headed West, to the soundtrack of Siena’s repeated questions about when she might be a flower girl in a wedding. (Please, if you’re reading this and not yet married, consider having Siena in your wedding. If you’re already married, consider renewing your vows [in a ceremony complete with flower girl]. And even if you have no intention of ever getting hitched, please consider creating a morning ritual in which Siena gets dressed up, comes over to your house and sprinkles flower petals in front of you as you walk to your car.) 

And that, plus more cheese curds than I care to think about, pretty much sums up our weekend. Congratulations, Claire and David!

My current to-do list is entitled: OMG How To Clean & Put All This Stuff Away? It contains a Googolplex of things I need to do in order to spend another minute in my house without going stark raving mad. But the kids are napping now, so instead of doing those things and risking waking anyone up, I am just getting out of here. Taking some junk to thrift stores, and probably picking up some new junk to bring back home. Which will then be added to The List, and subsequently ignored for the next six months, until I get fed up again and decide to get rid of it. And thus the cycle continues. 

Oh, and were you wondering why blog posting over here has been either nonexistent or eye-stabbingly boring lately? (Like this post?) It’s because of the junk, for one, that is threatening to swallow us all (in the last few weeks, both of my parents have unloaded multiple cars-full of lovely things things that need to be put somewhere things that are slowly killing me with their very presence). It is also because Matt has started a new job (within the same organization) with a totally new schedule, which has him home in time for dinner every night (praises be!) but completely eliminates my morning writing time. And my every other spare minute of writing time has been consumed by articles and writing class assignments, which I promise, will benefit catnamedpig readers any day now, but just not quite yet. (Writing class lesson #1: write something interesting. Laura: FAIL. Good thing it’s not for credit.) 

Also, (because who doesn’t love a good hog pile of to-do lists?) we’re going on two trips this month. Which should be totally fun and laid-back, because Elliot is happy to sit still for long stretches of time. ON A COLD DAY IN HELL.  

Thank you for your time. You may go read something interesting now. Let me know if you need any stuff, furniture or baby clothes or pretty much anything else you can think of. We’ve got it here somewhere. 

Dear One-Year-Old, 

I think it’s neat that you’re so chatty lately. You still don’t have that many words, but those you can pronounce, you use to great effect.

That said, I put you down for your nap and closed the door twenty minutes ago. It’s time to stop saying, “By-yee! Bye! Mama! By-yee!” already.  

Sweet dreams,

Mama  

The other night at dinner, Matt was humming the chimney sweep song from Mary Poppins (the one that Dick Van Dyke sings in a Cockney accent that goes “Chim chiminey / Chim chiminey / Chim chim cher-ee / A sweep is as lucky / As lucky can be” and so forth). Matt started singing the words, and at one point sang “Me likes what me am and me likes what me do.” I laughed.

“Hon, it’s I likes, not me likes.“

Matt [defensive]: “Whatever; he’s English.” 

Me [still laughing]: “He’s not two.” 

Siena chimes in at this point, mimicking my tone perfectly: “Yeah, Daddy, he’s not two.” [Pause.] “He’s twenty-nine and ten pounds.”   

While I appreciated her taking my side, I was somewhat surprised to learn that Bert the Chimney Sweep is approximately my age, give or take ten pounds.

[Nothing has happened lately that seems worth writing about, except maybe this story about Siena falling on her head and scaring the bejesus out of me. So I wrote a draft of it for a writing class I’m taking (I know! there might be hope for a glorious catnamedpig future free of run-on sentences and excessive parentheticals, but we’re not quite there yet) and now I am maximizing my word-typing time by pasting it here as a blog post. Because I have ten thousand other things that I’m supposed to be typing right now, but still, what’s the point of having a blog if you’re too busy writing other things to update it? Lazy, or extremely efficient? You decide (but don’t tell me if you decide “lazy.”)]

I look like I got in a fight. I look like Keith Richards, even though I’m usually more of a three-glasses-of-wine-the-sitter-wants-us-home-by-eleven type of partier. I feel like I got in a fight, too. And lost.

At least the black around my eyes is mostly yesterday’s mascara, combined with some dark circles and puffiness from hours of wakefulness last night. Better than actual bruises. I dab makeup remover on the dark smudges, slowly beginning the process of putting myself back together. I smooth the hair that started to form dreadlocks from tossing and turning. Good enough, at least, to leave the house in search of coffee and throat lozenges.

I thought for a while that motherhood had cured me of insomnia, replacing it with the total self-obliterating sleep deprivation of the newborn period. During those months of round-the-clock breastfeeding, my eyes closed the second my head hit the pillow. And that stage was followed by the current stage of intermittent bad dreams and minor illnesses that continue to keep me from taking sleep for granted. Even now, though, insomnia is creeping back into my life, an old acquaintance I’d rather not run into again. (“Hey,” I smile thinly, trying fake politeness, “It’s you. Just in town for a few days? No? Oh, you’re buying the house next door? I see. Huh.”)

My daughter seems to have inherited my sleeping patterns. A stressful event in her day, a vacation, any disruption in routine usually results in multiple trips to the bathroom or “scary dreams” at night. As an infant and toddler, before she could hop out of bed and sprint upstairs to our room, she sobbed in her crib whenever she woke. Which was usually anywhere from three times a night to a number so high my exhausted brain lost count. This went on until shortly before her brother was born, when things seemed to stabilize for a brief but glorious moment before his arrival disrupted her life and she went right back to waking up at odd intervals to make sure we were all still around.

I still know the exact pattern of lunging steps necessary to make it out of her room quietly, avoiding the creakiest floorboards.

The nights have gotten better as she’s gotten older; talking through her anxieties seems to help, as does bribery. But she still goes from lightly asleep to wide-awake and agitated at the slightest disturbance. We maintain the habits that got us this far: no flushing the toilet at night in the bathroom next to her room, and never, under any circumstances, opening her door or going in to check on her. (Our small house makes it easy to hear any sound at night, and we use a baby monitor if we’re in the basement or outside.)

Last night, though, I threw caution aside and opened her door twice.

Earlier that day, she fell on the playground. Headfirst, off a high platform. It was exactly like the waking nightmares that have fueled my insomnia since I became a parent, but real this time and exponentially more terrifying. I ran to her and was amazed to find that a mouthful of sand seemed to be her biggest discomfort. She was playing happily again within minutes, while my heart didn’t stop its frantic pounding for hours.

I observed her closely afterward and she seemed perfectly fine. But later that night, I couldn’t stop noticing every detail in our house with a heightened awareness, a nagging sense of how different those ordinary objects would look to me if she had not come home from the park perfectly fine. Her brand-new ballet shoes, sitting on the dining table instead of in her closet where they should be, with their stiff, untied laces standing straight up like antennae. The swimming registration form, partially filled out, where she had scrawled her name and the name of her best friend in bright green marker. When I came downstairs at 2:00 a.m. to escape the replay of her fall endlessly looping through my brain, these things made my throat ache.

I went to her room and quietly opened the door, watched for a minute as she slept, beautifully, on her side.

I tiptoed away and drank a glass of water, made a list, read for a while. All the usual strategies for working my way back toward sleep. When they didn’t help, I went back to her door and stood listening. I opened the door again, as quietly as I could. This time, her eyes flew open.

“Mama?” She didn’t sit up, but reached out her arms to me. I lay down, hugging her, inhaling the scent of strawberry shampoo and crisp outside air. And beneath those, the scent that is just her, that I’ve been smelling since she was a wide-awake baby who wanted nothing more than to be nestled in my arms at night. She sighed sleepily.

“Mama? . . . I like your nightgown.” 

She’s totally fine. Finally, I felt ready to go back to sleep.