cat named pig

In a rather last-minute and surprising (to me) decision, Matt took both kids to South Dakota for the weekend to attend his family reunion. Which involved camping. With a two-year-old and four-year-old in a tent. He is a brave and noble man, and deserves to be heartily commended. While I very much look forward to family camping trips when the kids are older, I was perfectly content not to be included this time.

So instead of waking up covered in tent-sweat (if you’ve ever been camping, you know what I’m talking about) with one child or the other’s foot in my face, I’ve been having a lovely stay-cation right here at home. Three full days and nights without my beloved family has been like an early birthday present. It’s been quiet and peaceful, and — best of all — I have completed every single bathroom-related task without a single interruption! (Bathroom privacy is the ultimate luxury to a parent of small children.)

The following is a list of conclusions I have reached during this peaceful time of reflection — if I can implement even half of them while my family is around, I will lead an enormously satisfying life:

1. If you make an evening appointment at my salon, they offer you a glass of wine. Which makes it even more relaxing. No more Saturday mornings in the chair for me!

2. I need to make room in my life for running. Running and I have had an on-again off-again relationship since high school cross country. We’d go steady for a while, then break up when something more exciting came along, like going to Paris, or starting a new job, or being pregnant (and convinced the only exercise I needed was walking to the ice cream shop). Most recently, I haven’t been running because it’s easier to take the kids to the gym where they can play in the childcare and I can use the machines. But I went running around the lake twice this weekend and loved it. (Even though I turned fuschia.) I need to do more of that. (The running, not the fuschia. Ideally that will improve with time.)

3. Cheese and crackers makes a perfectly delightful dinner. Even more delightful when consumed on the patio, with the laptop for music (and writing this blog post). I love eating outside and I need to make my family do it every night in summer, instead of just when we grill. (Which is almost every night in summer, but still. Why waste a chance to be outside when we have so few months that are warm enough?) I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner cheese and crackers outside this weekend and it was fantastic.

4. If I don’t have to fix a snack every five minutes for anyone, I can complete a billion-item To Do List in no time. I’m not sure how to apply this discovery to life when the kids are around — maybe I can teach them to make their own snacks while I successfully transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer without forgetting about it for days and having to rewash it. Maybe?

5. If I go to Target by myself, I will buy a cheap sun dress. I actually already knew this one, but confirmed it yet again. I don’t buy much in the way of clothes for myself these days, but I will be rocking a cute red dress on my birthday next week and it almost makes up for the fact that I have to be thirty.

6. If my husband and kids are away for three nights and three days, I will miss them by the end of the third day. A little.

Dear Two-Year-Old,

Not every question needs to be answered with “BAH-DO BAH-DO BOOTY.” In fact, most don’t. Just something to consider.

Love,

Mama

…..

Dear Mama,

BAH-DO BAH-DO BOOTY!

Love,

Elliot

…..

Dear Four-Year-Old,

Please stop calling your brother a “Bad Boy”. I think he’s a pretty good boy most of the time, except when he tackles the cat. Although, it is pretty funny when he calls you a “Bad Boy” in return. I guess I can see your point.

Love,

Mama

…..

Dear Elliot,

YOU’RE A BAD BOY!

Siena

…..

Dear Siena,

NO, YOU A BAD BOY! BAH-DO BAH-DO BOOTY!

Love,

Elliot

…..

Dear Elliot,

I know! Let’s call Mama a BAD BOY! It will be really funny.

Love,

Siena

…..

Dear Mama,

YOU A BAD BOY!

Love,

Elliot

P.S. BAH-DO BAH-DO BOOTY!

…..

Dear Coffee,

I need you. Why so slow this morning? Please brew faster. Your cooperation in this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Laura

…..

Dear Mama,

I HAVE A BOOTY! I HAVE A BOOOOO-TY!

Mama’s a bad boy!

BAH-DO BAH-DO BAD BOY! BOOTY!

Love,

Elliot and Siena

I had lots of ideas about things to post on Father’s Day, about Matt and what a great dad he is, and about my dad and Matt’s dad and my Grandpa Hu, who is in town for a few days. They are all wonderful fathers and interesting people, and I bet I could have come up with plenty to say.

Instead, I got a migraine on Thursday that lasted a full twenty-four hours and left me dazed and sensitive to light for days. It was like having a brutal hangover, only without the awesome night before. Matt stayed home with the kids on Friday, instead of going to his ten-year college reunion as he had planned. I felt somewhat functional by Saturday, so he headed out for the night with a case of Bud Light and a sleeping bag. (From what I gather, the Bud Light came in handy but he may as well have left the sleeping bag at home for all it got used. He said he and his friends were just going to bed about the time the kids woke up on Sunday morning.)

We had a nice brunch with my dad, then spent the rest of Sunday in a family competition for the title of Most Exhausted. The kids hadn’t slept well while Matt was gone, and I still felt like the day after Spring Concert in college (which is to say I felt: dehydrated, headachy, tired, fuzzy, grumpy, and slightly nauseated).

Our Father’s Day weekend was not a Hallmark-style success — more of an ordeal to be survived.

I didn’t put it in a gushy card or glowing blog post, but I’m sure Matt saw how much I loved him when I begged to him to “stay here with me — I’m dying” on Thursday night. Maybe my grumbled comments on Sunday about “I don’t see how single parents do it” conveyed to him just how much we all appreciate his presence and his many contributions here. Maybe the kids’ whiny behavior on Sunday showed him how much they missed him when he was away the night before.

Or maybe we should all start working on our Father’s Day cards for next year.

You’ll need:

• A bunch of vegetables
• Some tofu and/or meat product
• Enough jasmine rice for twelve people, even though you’re cooking for four
• Most of one day
• Several hundred dollars that you have no other plans for
• Infinite patience

Step 1: Go to Target to procure sugar-snap peas, tofu, and any other ingredients. Since you also need coffee (desperately!), swim diapers, and kids’ toothpaste, you feel smart about going to Target instead of to the grocery store or co-op because you can get everything in one trip. You will also end up buying two identical sets of Tinkerbell mini highlighters as a bribe (yes, one for each kid) and promising to stop at Hot Plate for pancakes on the way home. (This is a promise you are perfectly happy to make and keep, because Hot Plate serves their pancakes with lingonberry butter and that is every bit as awesome as it sounds.)

Step 2: Head toward Hot Plate. Hit gigantic pothole and realize car is making a funny sound and possible smoking. From a stupid pothole on the one road in Minneapolis NOT currently under construction. Mutter several curse words and hope they are not intelligible to the back seat.  

Step 3: Turn corner and park in front of restaurant. Call husband and ask him to call AAA, while simultaneously ordering copious amounts of breakfast foods, diffusing conflict over jelly and creamer packets, and keeping younger child from playing with knife. (This is why you want husband to call Triple A.) Eat copious amounts of breakfast foods while husband arrives to “check out the car” in person before calling AAA.

Step 4: Get ride home from husband, who will return to busted car to wait for tow truck. Unload groceries and diffuse conflict over identical sets of Tinkerbell mini-highlighters. (How can there be conflict if they are identical, you might ask? If you are asking that, you clearly don’t have kids. Please go back to sipping your mai thai and sleeping in late, or whatever it is you do with your luxuriously whining-free days, and don’t worry about why they would fight over something they each have.)

Step 5: Wash hands.

Step 6: Wipe child’s nose. Wash hands.

Step 7: Start chopping veggies. Get interrupted to change diaper. Wash hands twice, just to be on the safe side.

Step 8: Head toward kitchen with intent to continue chopping veggies. Get interrupted by more conflict over toys, and decide it’s naptime. Put younger child down for nap and turn on cartoons for older one. (Because you are not magic. And it’s OK to admit that. Also, you want to chop veggies in peace for five minutes.)

Step 9: Wash hands.

Step 10: Chop veggies. Get interrupted to fetch snacks for child who only recently ate her weight in pancakes and scrambled eggs. Call husband to check on status of car. Diagnosis: costly. Curse out loud and hope loud cartoons drown out sound.

Step 11: Wash hands.

Step 12: Chop yet more veggies, as half of what you’ve chopped so far has gone into the Snack Bowl (almost all the sugar-snap peas and half the red and orange peppers). Offer baby bok choy next time The Snacker returns to ask for more. This is met with disgust, as everyone knows it to be a “weird vegetable.”

Step 13: Drain and press tofu.

Step 14: Take scraps out to compost bin. Do about seven other minor outdoor chores while you’re out there. Come in to sound of frantic voice calling “Mama? MAMA!?!”

Step 15: Explain that you were just out back and let’s not yell during naptime. Make amends with grumpy abandoned child by offering more snacks, but first – you guessed it – wash hands.

Step 16: E-mail omnivore husband to tell him that if he wants meat in stir-fry, he should pick some up on the way home. Wash hands and return to chopping.

Step 17: Realize that you forgot to get coffee (lack of which is probably the reason you hit the stupid pothole – without caffeine, nothing ever goes right). Start to e-mail husband about need for coffee. Get interrupted: naptime is over. Fetch small boy from crib and send him downstairs to watch cartoons with sister. (Because you are still not magic, but you WILL have a healthy, home-cooked meal tonight.) Wash hands.

Step 18: Fix snack for younger child. Explain to older child why it is not actually unfair that he gets a snack, because she has had TWENTY.

Step 19: Fix older child a snack.

Step 20: Fetch milk in sippy cup for younger child.

Step 21: Argue with older child about a) why she can’t have milk in the basement (because it would spill) and b) why she can’t have a sippy cup (because the others are in the dishwasher). 

Step 22: Return to kitchen and contemplate chopped vegetables. Get interrupted by cries of “BUGGY-BUGGY! NOOOO!” and head back downstairs for bug removal.

Step 23: Wash hands.

Step 24 : Decide you’re done for the moment. Put chopped veggies into containers and put in fridge. Sit on kitchen floor with laptop and peruse food blogs for a few minutes. Break into maniacal laughter at recipes for “Quick and Easy Stir-Fries.” BWAAHAHAHAHAHA. HA.

Step 25: Realize that it is almost 3:30. You have literally done nothing today but break your car and attempt to prep some veggies to be stir-fried. Head downstairs to turn off TV and brace for gigantic fight over turning off TV.

Step 26: Gigantic fight finally over. Husband should be home soon. Decide you no longer care about making stir-fry*. Locate takeout menu for Fresh Wok. 

….. 

*It’s not like they would have eaten it anyway. The kids only like plain rice (and plain vegetables) and the husband doesn’t really like tofu. Whatever.

On the front steps just now, Siena and Elliot were waiting for Matt to take them to the “Splash Pad.” The snippet of their conversation that I overheard was not particularly funny or remarkable in any way, except that it was so exactly them, so typical of their interactions and roles in the family lately.

Siena: “Sit down by me, Bud.”

Elliot carefully inches his way across the step, then sits down on the step below the one Siena is on.

Siena: “No, Bud, you have to sit on this one. Because this is the one I’m sitting on, see?”

Elliot [whining slightly]: “Why-eee?”

But he complies with her request order, moves up a step and settles himself right next to her. He spots their goggles near the top of the beach bag and reaches for them. Siena, anxious to protect her property from his grubby, destructive hands, jumps in before he can grab them:

“Do you want your BLUE GOGGLES, Bud? Do you want to hold YOUR BLUE GOGGLES?”

I can hear the tension in her voice, her concern that he will grab both pairs, yet she is not yanking them away from him. She is diverting him, directing his attention away from her goggles and encouraging him to focus on his own BLUE GOGGLES. The emphasis in her voice, and even the slightly strained note (please let this not turn into a fight) is an exact imitation of mine. She is parenting.

Elliot [enthusiastically]: “YEAH!”

Siena: “Should Sister hold her PURPLE goggles?”

Elliot: “YEAH!”

She has succeeded. Her goggles are safe in her hands, and with his support even. There will not be a squabble, this time.

I do this a thousand times a day, this sort of delicate intervention before tempers flare, but it catches me by surprise to hear it from her. Makes me realize how much she is absorbing; she is really listening to me even though some days you wouldn’t believe it. I wonder what else she is picking up.

It occurs to me that I’ve been complaining a lot lately — on this blog, and also over the phone or in person if you’ve been unlucky enough to engage in conversation with me lately. Normally I would try to do some of the “gratitude adjustment,” turn-your-thoughts-around type therapy recommended in my yoga books (making a list of things I am grateful for, focusing on them instead of on how irritated I am, etc.). And yeah, that stuff totally helps, most of the time.

But today, I am not apologizing for being in a funk. It’s been rainy and grey for days now and I’m going to go ahead and embrace it. No one is meant to be blissful and happy (or even appropriately grateful and acknowledging) all the time, right?

So in the spirit of grey weather (yes, I like the British “grey” better than GRAAAAAY), and in the hopes of getting a little amusement out of my bad mood, here is a list of problems I’d love to have:

• need to replace pants: all too big
• exhausted by book tour
• not enough room in wine rack
• deciding between job offers
• need to replace bras: all too small
• no time to come home and re-pack between vacations
• housekeeper is late again
• which dress to get at Anthropologie
• hotel room service is closed

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

And take with you the word butt. Also take the words poopy, head-head (I know, I don’t get it either), booty and coo-coo. Because I desperately need to hear a sentence constructed without any of those. Or even just a sentence that isn’t constructed solely of those.

Siena’s latest rainy day project seems to involve discovering every possible combination of those words, all done at top volume. We can’t go thirty seconds without a “POOPY HEAD-HEAD COO-COO BUTT!” or some such. And there have been a lot of thirty-second intervals in this cold, rainy Monday. She’s got to be almost out of new combinations, right?

Right?

Oh, hi. It’s you, Blog. What — you want some attention from me? Sorry, Blog — not gonna happen anytime soon. Because preschool is over, you see, and music class is over. Swimming lessons are ending, and summer camps haven’t started yet.You might be wondering, Blog, what any of this has to do with you and the lack of attention you’ve seen lately.

Well, here’s the thing: I have no attention to give you. No attention to give my cat, my husband, my house, or my eyebrows (which could use some tweezing). No attention left to give because it has all been used up. All of it. All of my attention is being sucked into an endless vacuum of “HEY MAMA.” “GUESS WHAT, MAMA?” And, if I leave the room, “MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!”  All uttered in a four-year-old voice imitating a drunken British football hooligan bellowing obscenities at the opposing team.

And whenever there’s a pause in the stream of “Hey MAMAs,” it’s not because I am enjoying a minute to focus on whatever I need to focus on (e-mail, scheduling doctor’s appointments, thirty seconds with the tweezers and a mirror). No. It’s because the “Hey MAMAs” have been temporarily replaced with a bunch of “NOOOOOOOOOO — it’s MIIIIIIIIIIIIINEs” that make my ears bleed and whatever’s left of my sanity dive headfirst out the nearest plate glass window.

In other words, we miss preschool.

We miss the outlet for some of Siena’s physical and emotional energy. We miss the nap times where Elliot slept while Siena was at school, and the house was quiet for ninety gorgeous minutes of the day. We even miss the hustle and bustle of trying to get to preschool on time (I never thought I’d say that, but it’s true). Without preschool to break up the day, all we have is non-stop bickering, complaints of “boredom” in toy-strewn rooms, a stream of chatter that rarely ceases and grows increasingly angry-sounding if not responded to immediately.

Elliot has ratcheted up the intensity of his demands for attention too — whether as a natural expression of his two-year-old-ness or because he feels the need to compete with Siena. Either way, it means that every second they are not fighting, someone is asking me for something. Loudly.

So Blog, until you can get in my face and literally shout for my attention, you’re not going to get much of it. You can ask Pig how she’s coping. Oh, yeah, and do we still have a fish?

Dear Four-Year-Old,

A few weeks ago, when I was at Target out doing something really important, I received a text message that said “Mama.”

When I got home I told Matt I liked the message. He looked at me blankly.

“I didn’t send you a text message.”

“Yeah, you did. With Siena? It said Mama.“

[Blank stare] “No, we didn’t send anything. She must have done it while I was putting Elliot to bed.”

That’s right, Four-Year-Old — you unlocked your dad’s cell phone, typed a text message and then typed my phone number (which you have memorized) and hit “send.”

But that’s not all. The other day I opened the camera feature on my iPhone. . . and was surprised to see several new pictures that I had not taken. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be pictures of the cat, a grinning Elliot, and a close-up of sparkly nail polish on four-year-old toes. Hmmm.

Not only have I never shown you how to take pictures with my phone, I have actually threatened you, your father and your brother with severe bodily harm if anyone messes with my iPhone. So to say I was surprised to see those images would be an understatement.

What these stories demonstrate, Four-Year-Old, is that you have a remarkable ability to master new technology, to figure out complex gadgets that most adults need pages of instructions to operate.

Why, then, is it so hard to remember to flush the toilet consistently?

Sincerely,

Mama

Yard sale. Whew. Glad that’s over. And glad we won’t be doing it again anytime soon. Siena seemed to like it, though — she wants to have another one today, and tomorrow, and the day after. She mentioned this plan repeatedly as I was hauling stuff in last night when it was officially over. I was too tired to respond, so she probably thinks it’s a go. (It’s not.)

Is this boring? I’m getting a little bored typing here. Blah blah blah let me chronicle for you how I sat on my front stoop with Sara and Matt and sold stuff I didn’t want to people who apparently did want it. Which in some cases led us to chuckle as they walked away. There was even a celebratory fist-bump when some crazy suckers put our HUGE, HEAVY entertainment center in their truck and drove away with it. Now we don’t have to move it, ever again! Sweet relief.

And then there was the Star Wars Family. (One quick yard sale story, and then I’ll get back to covering breaking news stories and interviewing celebrities and all the other exciting stuff you normally come here to read.)

The Star Wars Family consisted of Star Wars Dad, a youngish — for a parent — father of a boy who was perhaps Siena’s age. We’ll call the boy Star Wars Son. There was also Star Wars Mom/Grandma, but she came later. . . .

Star Wars Dad* and Son came by Sunday morning and spent a good half-hour looking through every single comic book we had put out for ten cents each. Then they looked through every single VHS tape we had in a cardboard box for twenty-five cents each. (Many of these were Star Wars — perhaps I should be calling my own family the Star Wars Family. People in glass houses. . . on Tatooine. . . shouldn’t throw stones. Or something. You know the saying.)

THEN they spotted the framed Star Wars movie posters, which used to adorn the basement of the house I grew up in. These were a whopping dollar apiece, because we need to give Siena and Elliot room to explore their own geeky obsessions (expect to see framed Nutcracker art in our house very soon). Star Wars Dad was PUMPED when he saw these.

But he didn’t buy them then. He explained that he didn’t have any money, and that he wouldn’t until later in the day. He even asked if we could hold the stuff till Thursday, because he might not have money until Thursday. (I said no — this stuff needs to be OUT of here.)

Since he could have bought everything he wanted for under four dollars, this having-to-wait seemed slightly strange, but I know, times are tight. Whatever. He was obviously a fan, so we set the posters aside for him and he promised to come back later in the afternoon to buy them.

He came back all right — he walked by two or three separate times throughout the day, always with Star Wars Son. And I’m not talking about just strolling by on their way somewhere. I mean they walked along our side of the street, checked out the sale some more, then walked to the corner and crossed to walk back along the other side of our street. More than once.

But the best part was when the sale was over and I was packing stuff up to burn throw in a dumpster try to sell at a friend’s sale in two weeks because I am a masochist.

Star Wars Dad and Son came back, as promised, with Star Wars Mom/Grandma this time. (So named because she was not the mother of Star Wars Son, but of the dad.)

She had the money. And we still had the posters. And the movies. And one of the comics, but not the one they had particularly wanted. (This was disappointing to Star Wars Dad. And to me, because I had to hear about it. A lot.)

Star Wars Mom/Grandma was amazed when I told her the price for the posters. Shocked. Horrified, even. She blinked, looked at me with her mouth agape, and exclaimed, “But you’re practically giving them away! WHY?”

I shrugged and mumbled something about how they were huge and we didn’t have room and I went back to my packing. But then she asked how much the movies were. I told her they were a quarter.

“WHAT? Really?”

“Yeah, seventy-five cents for the set.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked at me with her head to one side. “So, what, do you not even LIKE Star Wars anymore?”

Uh, no, lady. I like Star Wars plenty. I just don’t want to wallpaper my house with it, all right? And we already have not just one, but two boxed sets of the VHS movies. And we also have the DVDs. I think we’re set.

They quickly bought up everything Star Wars-related that we had left and loaded it into the car, probably trying to rush it away from toxic environment of our supposedly Star Wars-hating house.

And that is why we will not be having another yard sale any time soon.

…..

*It is difficult to describe Star Wars Dad without using the word nerd. He was so exuberantly nerdy that he could have been playing a character in Revenge of the Nerds. He was the walking embodiment of every nerd stereotype of the last century — the glasses, the slicked-down hair, the awkward social interaction, the nasal laughter. Everything. I am not trying to be cruel here — just trying to convince myself that this guy was for real. And that he had a child with him calling him “Dad” — indicating the existence, at some point, of some sort of relationship between this guy and an actual woman. Hard to fathom.