My sister is getting married

What the HELL? How can my sister get married? She's, like, 5! Little sisters don't get married and change their last names and share a bed with some hooligan (a nice, respectable hooligan, but STILL) for the REST OF THEIR LIVES!

No! They follow their big sisters around and do as they're told and just kinda help out with MY LIFE for the rest of THEIR LIFE. Egads, even though E. has been engaged for two and a half years, I am not ready for this! Even though she's 32, even though I've known this was coming -- this is totally unacceptable.

Little sisters run around in hand-me-down nighties being pests and stealing gum. Little sisters do hilarious things with their hair, for which they are mercilessly teased for years thereafter. Little sisters call their wise big sisters and ask what they should do, and then they do as they are told. They don't go MARRYING someone who will take precedence over their lives!

OK, I did it first. I married my own hooligan and started this unfortunate TREND. But I'm sitting here in my house, packing up my family into various bags and wondering, "What is all this about? I'm travelling to my sister's wedding? This is completely unauthorized."

Well, I may be losing a sister, but I'm already greedy for my child to have COUSINS. Tons of 'em. So if you're going to be all married and everything, E., you better well make some cousins. Hop to it! Do as you're told!

Baby loves shoes

Babycakes has been testing her Boston wardrobe (the forecast calls for rain -- therefore Froggy Boots) and it meets with her approval.

What is it with this chick and SHOES? We had to LEAVE the playground today because another child had taken off her pink Crocs and left them in PLAIN VIEW of my child, who did not understand for the LIFE of her why she was not permitted to don them. She's insane for Crocs, such that we cannot go into REI or Nordstrom anymore, because she KNOWS where the Crocs display is, and would like to FEEL all of them, and play with them and get to know every Croc on the rack, personally.

But it's not just Crocs. It's the Dora the Explorer flip-flops that Grandma R. sent her. They are so GLORIOUS, that she looks down at her feet while she's walking, and were it not for her quick-thinking mom, she would have entered ravines and construction sites, staring lovingly at her shoes. I present this love-o-shoes as further evidence that she is not related to me. I have never given a crap about shoes, just if they look decent and don't give me blisters. This kid? She regularly puts on MY Crocs and slides around the house saying, "Ooooooh!" As in, "I look HOT in these, no?"

The mystery of B.

B. and I weren't normal, cool kids. It was eighth grade. My parents were divorced and her father had passed away the year before. We were smart and socially awkward, and we both liked to make fun of people.

We got along like gangbusters. My dad tried to give her dad-like attention, and her mom would pack lunches for me. B. and I came to be best friends in 1984, and that friendship endured, tight as a drum, throughout high school. When we graduated in 1989, it felt natural to hold a joint graduation party. We rented out a barn in a nearby park, and our friends hung from the rafters. We decorated in the colors we wore to the prom (me: white, her: mauve).

One thing that was extremely cool about B. is that while she was very focused on academic success and general primness, she had a fondness for dating the bad boys. She chalked up some real HOTTIES in our high school days. You know, guys that drove beat-up pick-up trucks and had older sisters with two kids. She was sly like that -- you'd never suspect this wild taste in men of a girl who regularly vacuumed and deodorized the car she'd inherited from her grandmother. THEN she lost her virginity to a FRENCH GUY IN FRANCE. He sent her roses and perfumes and books of inscrutible poetry. But she stayed kind of nerdy and head-down academically, clean and color-coordinated and headed for success.

We visited each other and wrote letters during college, and spent a lot of time together in Europe when we both studied abroad. We took a crazy trip through Italy and Greece together, where we almost died about 12 times and accidentally trampled some precious Macedonian ruins (sorry).

Then we graduated college and things started to get... weird.Our friendship has become so schizo I don't know what to make of it anymore.

After we graduated college, we planned another trip to Europe together, to re-live old times on a little budget. She had started dating an older man with Old Money in Cleveland, and she was in the mood to do something nutty before things became serious with him. I was mired in a difficult job in Boston. So we booked flights, met in NYC and headed off to Europe once more -- fancy free!

But she acted different -- closed-off, not really talking. She called her diabetic boyfriend every night in order to help monitor his blood sugar levels ("You know eating Spagettios is not good for you," she admonished in a phone booth in the Assisi town square). Then she suddenly called our travel agent and booked an emergency ticket home -- leaving me alone in Rome, which is a SHIIIITTTY place to be a woman travelling alone.

WHY did she do this? She later said that she felt that our trip was too DANGEROUS. Yes, a drive down the Amalfi coast is EXCITING and scary, but not equivalent to consorting with terrorists in a Mideast border town. At the time, she just flew home, and arrived in time to accompany her boyfriend to a pancake breakfast his family was sponsoring.

And I had to negotiate f-ing ROME on my own, being chased through the gardens by hooligans on scooters.

WHAT THE HELL?

After this trip, I ignored her. She sent me a birthday present and I gave it away. She tried sending me upbeat little letters, not even acknowledging her European freakishness and I didn't respond. Finally, a business trip led me to Cleveland and I called her up. She was so excited that I called, and met me for drinks at my hotel, where I learned that:

(a) She was engaged. (With a gargantuan diamond to prove it)
(b) She wanted me to be a bridesmaid.

Well, what was I going to say, "No?"

I said OK and she sent me a beautiful dress to wear and put me up at the Ritz and gave me a pair of pearl earrings. I even wrote a poem, at her request, to read at the ceremony. The poem is BADASS if I do say so myself, and hangs here on my office wall, framed as a gift from his family.

After her wedding, she completely dropped out of my life. Radio silence. Despite my letters and phone calls, the only thing I heard from her was a Christmas card signed just by her husband for five long years.

THEN out of the BLUE she called. She was going to be in San Francisco. She'd rented a bright yellow Mustang convertible and she was going to tour Napa by herself for the weekend, and did I want to meet her for dinner?

Uh, OK. Hub-D and I raced off to meet her, and had a wonderful dinner with her. She was in a splendid mood, remembering so many funny details of our growing up together, and behaving as though there had never been YEARS OF SILENCE between us. I was so excited. As Hub-D and I walked to our car after dinner, I felt giddy from the reconnection. I LOVE B. We shared so many good times, and she has such a naughty sense of humor. I hadn't seen that sense of humor for the better part of a decade, so I was delirious with glee at its return.

It seemed natural to call her when Hub-D and I got engaged shortly thereafter.

"I'll throw you a shower!"... was her immediate response.

Uh, OK. So she did. She threw me a beautiful shower at a country club near our hometown, complete with thoughtful favors and a delicious meal and cake, and every detail lovingly cared for. "FANTASTIC!" I thought, "She's really my FRIEND AGAIN!"

I thanked her and invited her to the bonfire my dad was throwing that night. She had to head back to Cleveland, so no, and see you at the wedding...

I seated B. and her husband with my dad at the wedding -- a place of honor, as long as you "get" my dad, which she does. They gave us a set of Riedel glassware. B.'s mother came to the wedding as well, an honored guest after all those years of lunches and cookies.

THEN I NEVER HEARD FROM HER AGAIN.

B. has dropped out of sight. She has not responded to any of my letters, e-mails or phone calls since my wedding. Her mother has sent cards and baby gifts, so I'm guessing that whatever I did to offend B. wasn't so great as to alienate her mother as well.

I have backtracked through everything -- through the shower she threw me, through every interaction I had with her -- and I really can think of nothing I might have done. We were joking and happy and having fun, yes? And the photos of her at the wedding (which I've studied obsessively) show nothing to indicate that she would completely drop out of my life immediately afterward.

I've sent her Christmas cards and Babycakes' birth announcement, and when the "no-cap" Sharpie was released, I sent her three of them, because they are precisely the kind of office supply that the two of us covet. BUT NO RESPONSE.

I don't even get Christmas cards anymore.

I know I should just let this go. I know that, especially after the "leaving me in Rome" incident and the "five years of silence" that I should cut my losses. Maybe there is something I am doing that pisses her off. Maybe she TRIES to be friends with me and then I DO that thing -- whatever it is -- and she is forced to flee from me again, for years at a time.

Perhaps it has nothing to do with me. But still, I have to wonder. WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON? Even if I were some horrid slob, I might still merit a holiday greeting, yes? I would even be grateful for one signed by her husband at this point.

It's like some sick exercise in intermittent reinforcement. If our friendship had petered out after our European trevails, then fine... but every so often she leaps back into my life and acts like everything is exactly as we last left it...

I don't know. I am conscious of the fact I should focus on the friends I DO have, but I miss B. There is a hole in my life since she left it.

Grand Theft Target

I’m not done being mad at the shoplifter I witnessed at Target on Monday afternoon.

She was about 40 years old, had two kids – an eight-year-old boy and a toddler girl. She was Asian, with a huge straw hat on, and she had a few items in her cart. She was talking with her kids in her native language, perusing the aisles.

Then, as Babycakes and I were trying to find FLOURIDE baby toothpaste because Dr. M. said that topical fluoride is better than ingested fluoride and I really do need to be brushing her three itty-bitty teeth so that they don’t rot out of her mouth, I saw the woman steal!

Her son came up to her with a videogame – and I always spy on videogame purchasers, as this is my family’s livelihood, and I like to track what people are buying – and she stuffed it directly in her big, honking purse and ZIPPED IT UP. Then, in the most evil move of all, she smiled at me.

So I tattletaled. I jumped to the front of the pharmacy line and told them what I had witnessed. Their response was really nonchalant; they phoned security and then went back to what they were doing.

WHAT? Where is the red alarm light? Let’s LOCK DOWN THE STORE and publicly humiliate that terrible woman who is stealing a videogame for her kid. And to top it off, SHE DIDN’T EVEN LOOK AT THE RATING. I mean, if you’re going to break the law and piss me off and be a total shoplifting jerk, you might as well LOOK at the media content you’re bringing into your home. For all we know, she could have been stealing a game about stealing. “Grand Theft Target” probably…

Never one to leave well enough alone, I kept tattletaling to Target employees until I was finally introduced to a manager. She and I were completely on the same page about that shoplifter. The thief needed to be brought DOWN, and the manager personally manned the door of the store, along with another employee (presumably to witness that she wasn’t “profiling” or too violent when she would inevitably WRESTLE that bitch down to the ground, subdue her with handcuffs, then with plastic gloves she would open her purse and pull out the EVIDENCE of her wrongdoing).

I wish I could say that I stuck around to watch the shoplifter get caught, but I thought I might be pegged as a stalker or a “lookieloo” if I hung around the entrance with my unwitting child, waiting for justice to be served. So I don’t know how the story ends here, although I have high hopes that she was instantly deported for stealing a videogame from Target, which is, in essence, stealing from all Target customers and the videogame industry – so, she was stealing from ME.

My latest fantasy regarding this situation is that I don’t tattletale, but instead, I grab the woman’s son and hiss to him, “Do you want your mother to go to JAIL?” and then he would start crying and say, “No” as he looked at the ground, red with shame. And then I would say, “You are a bad son for allowing your mother to steal for you. NEVER let your mother steal for you, because then she will go to JAIL.”

Yes, I would traumatize him, but I would say that the damage of aiding and abetting his mother’s shoplifting is far greater. And, truth be told, someone did the same thing to me, years ago. I was shopping with my mother at a grocery store in Pittsburgh. I stole some gum. And a firm old lady came up to me and said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, little girl.”


I cried my ass off, and told my mother I was INTENDING to pay for it, and, God bless her, she believed me. But you know what? I never shoplifted again. That woman saved me from a life of crime. And I missed my opportunity to return the favor.

All Hail Daddy

I'd just like to take a moment from my usual complaining about not being pregnant or the weather or the fact I was bullied by a cop into installing my carseat in the MIDDLE of the backseat and now I have pulled muscles from trying to stuff a 23-lb. child into her irritatingly positioned carseat, to say how AWESOME Daddy (aka Hub-D) is.

Babycakes and I hold the same position on this topic. She hit the daddy jackpot, being Hub-D's daughter. She got his good looks, his hearty genes, and his love for all things CNBC. He's really good at pretending to be a dog and playing that one game where he whistles and pretends not to see her then launches a surprise attack.

He had been surprised to find out he was having a daughter, having imagined that his children would be sons. And now? He's gunning for another daughter, because "Every girl should have a sister."

Daddy, you're the best. And we don't mind saying it in washable marker.

Puke City

Today, Babycakes spiked a fever and puked all over our front entryway. Heartless mother that I am, I hauled her heaving body out onto the front lawn, so as to limit my future clean-up efforts. And she continued hurling onto the roses, which, I callously thought while it was happening, is probably good fertilizer.

Ever-the-opportunist, I then made her snuggle with me. See, she NEVER wants to snuggle with me anymore. I get a few good, satisfying hugs, but the big long cuddles are a thing of the past. She's a girl of ACTION and giving your mom hugs is totally for pussies, apparently. But when she's SICK, she changes her tune, so instead of promptly wiping her clean and putting her directly to bed, I made her take a bath with me.

We were BOTH coated in sticky vomit (why was it pink? where did the half-digested raisin come from? mysteries for the ages...), so I peeled our clothes off and pulled her in the tub with me.

In her post-barf stupor, she regarded my boobs for a second:

"Hey, waaait a minute, I remember those..."

Then...

"Nah, the ones I recall were way bigger."

Then she snuggled against my chest for a few minutes. The water turned a brownish pink. I kept the hot water pouring while she sighed and stayed eerily still, pressing her cheek against my sternum.

I washed off her face and rubbed her feet and pulled her out, wrapped in a giant towel, I coated her with Mimyx lotion against the flush of eczema she's battling, and dressed her in two layers of snuggly cotton. She drank a whole cup of formula (oh boobmilk, how I miss you)... and fell asleep.

I hear her coughing softly now in the next room, our Babycakes, our Chebbles. Sleep tight, my princess. I'll trade the cuddling for a healthy kid and a clean floor, but it's somehow so sweet when your kid needs you like that, isn't it?

Boston

It's cold.
It's expensive.
It has only one sushi restaurant.

My sister is getting married Saturday after next, so Hub-D, Babycakes and I are packing up and visiting my old stomping grounds -- Boston.

Or at least I THINK it was my old stomping grounds, because I was drunk for a fair portion of my waking hours, when I wasn't at work or in class (OK, sometimes there too). Boston is a drinking town, as I recall, and we put away pitchers of beer like Californians put away Evian. One thing I do remember was the sad day we realized that the "House Brew" at our favorite bar was Bud Light. We'd been drinking it for years, assuming it was handcrafted in the basement of Charlie Flynn's in some tradition handed down from the Minutemen. No... anyway...

I haven't been back to Boston for more than a short how-do-you-do since leaving the city in 1998. Now I wonder -- can I handle all of these memories? (Any ones that survived the influx of Charlie Flynn's pitchers.) When I left the city, I was a head case -- hurtling toward the other coast of the country with a few ill-thought-out relationships in progress. I was leaving my sister and my cats behind to start all over again in Eugene, Oregon. I was meaner back then. I danced on tables, I accumulated debt, I tried to pry men away from their girlfriends and was accused, in all seriousness, by one of my co-workers, of being "a witch." ("No, I'm serious, do you do rituals or voodoo dolls or anything like that? Because I think you do.")

I left all of that behind. I left the snow and the pitchers and the sister and the cats and hit "restart" on my life. So what is waiting for me on the sidewalks of Boston? Besides my sister and her wedding to the handsome Greek man she met on the dance floor shortly after I left the city? And the cats? And probably the pitchers? Lodged in the sidewalks and the street signs and the stacks at the Boston Public Library, will I find my misdeeds and bad feelings waiting for me?

Are my suitcases of guilt and crappy relationships and wrongdoing sitting by the side of the road, still labeled with my name, waiting for the last eight years for my return?

Hell, I'm going to drive straight past if they are. I've changed a lot since those days, plus I don't have room for them, what with the carseat and all.

Arachnophobia

Am I the meanest mom in the world?

See, we received this really interesting cloth cube toy for Babycakes' birthday. Every side of the cube features some little ditty and an interactive experience for my baby to enjoy. You know, like a little cloth cell phone for "Five Little Monkeys"... so mama can call the doctor and the doctor can call social services.

But anyway, there is one side of the cube that is dedicated to the spider song. I always thought it was the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" but perhaps due to ASCAP issues, this one is the "Eensy Weensy Spider." And there is a little curtain that features the words to the song, and behind that curtain is a BIG FAT SPIDER. And if you pull on the spider, it makes a buzzing noise as it retreats back behind the curtain.

Yeah, cool! Right? Well, let's just say that this spider scares my child more than any other object in her young life. More than scary dogs knocking her over (she laughs) or Gymbo the Clown (who scares the daylights out of ME) or people with eyepatches or FIRE or anything else. It is one badass scary spider.

I realized yesterday that she had been avoiding her little toy nook in our living room -- because the cube was sitting there with the SPIDER SIDE OUT. She would approach her toys, then back away, like, "Whoa... Who's got some RAID?"

So being the jerky mother that I am, I had to kind of "test" this fear. I mean, is she really afraid of the spider? How afraid, and why? So I went over and pulled the spider out, and let him buzz back behind his curtain. SHEER TERROR. Full body shakes. MOTHER, BACK AWAY FROM THE SPIDER!

This morning, the cube was just sitting there, and I thought, perhaps I ought to teach my child that spiders are a benign force in this world, meant to rid us of gnats and skeeters... So we looked at the little cloth cell phone, then the "Pop Goes the Weasel" portion, which she is totally NOT scared by, then she came across the spider and CLIMBED ME LIKE A TREE.

She shimmied up my body as if to say, "Take HER, Mr. Spider! Take my MAMA, for chrissake, she's the one who keeps pissing you off!"

It's true, I can't keep my hands off that spider.

We're retiring the cube for now. But I can't say that it doesn't make me laugh, OK? And I don't know the karmic price I'll pay for deliberately frightening a child, but I'm sure I can't afford it. In the meantime, Babycakes, watch out for... SPIDERS!

Am I a geek?

I have this mounting fear that I'm turning my child into a geek.

My theory is that all babies are born COOL. And it's up to parents to allow them to remain cool and not accidentally transform them into big geeks.

See, I was a geek in high school. I wasn't unattractive or friendless, but I was in the BAND and I was a spaz, and other, more popular people identified me as a "geek." So there you have it.

And make no mistake, it was clearly my parents' fault. If only I'd had cooler haircuts and better social exposure and rigorous manners training, if I'd been encouraged to take part in cool activities (sports) and my dad didn't wear a florescent pink knit HAT when he bicycled past my bus stop every morning -- then I wouldn't have had those problems. And I would have had way more dates in high school.

As it was, I had to wait until college before I transformed into a cool girl, whereupon I instantly began making fun of other "geeks" while I executed perfect kegstands and grew out my perm.

I don't want Babycakes to experience the hell of high school geekdom, that uncertain feeling -- where to SIT in the cafeteria, how to do one's hair, the constant certainty that a party is going on somewhere to which one has not been invited.

For one thing, she will not get perms. But I had her bangs cut, and it was her first real haircut, and I keep looking at her -- DID I MAKE HER GEEKY? This child's social FATE is in my hands, and it's quite possible that I already screwed it up.

I've already got her conscripted to swimming lessons for the forseeable future, because participating in a swim team does seem to be a social prerequisite around here. But there are grey areas... such as Girl Scouts. Is it dorky now? And chess. She's going to learn chess, but Chess Club is probably out. Or maybe it's cool now? I've lost track.

Anyway, she's waking up now. I will go to her and continue her coolness training... to the best of my geeky abillities...

.

AAaaaand NOPE. Got my period. Nature's way of saying, "Go Fish."

I will now resume my regularly scheduled obsession with my daughter. I wonder sometimes if she will tire of my cloying ways. I know it annoys her when I sniff on her hair or make her hug me or basically force her to be my pal 20 times a day when she'd rather put bark in her mouth. Too bad, kid, mama's needy.

Babycakes vanquishes meanness

There is probably some significance to my daughter's having ripped the "shift" key off this keyboard. Perhaps it means that I have lost the ability to "shift" since becoming pregnant with her, or some crap like that. Or maybe it means that I shouldn't let her play with the laptop, even if it's Football Sunday.

My period is officially one day late. I told myself VERY FIRMLY and in the voice of the meanest substitute teacher we had in high school (Mrs. Meister, who called me a hippie... so mean), anyway, in a mean voice, I said, "Don't get your hopes up, sister." But it was too late, I completely got my hopes up. Then I hastily took a pregnancy test and it was completely negative. It was SO negative and just really harsh about it, laughing at me: "I can't believe you peed on me, FOOL! You and your 35-year-old eggs, who do you think you are???"

I told you it was mean. Meaner than Mrs. Meister, whose kids were adopted, by the way, so maybe we have something in common by way of our uncooperative uteruses.

In an effort to rid myself of this mean inner dialogue, I present these photos of Babycakes in Wyoming. The top one was on the shore of a lake in Yellowstone named after her famous ancestor for whom she was named. That afternoon, she was hiking off on spur trails by herself, in search of throat-sized rocks.

The bottom photo is Babycakes with her Uncle A, on a trail in the Grand Tetons in a hat I made her wear.

Damn I love this girl. She is so much sunshine, so easy to laugh, and takes all of my foibles (of which there are many) in stride. Who knows about my reproductive future, but Hub-D and I really hit this one out of the park...

Tough

My kid is so damn tough, I'm not even sure she's mine.

She just had THREE devastating shots in the thighs for her one-year appointment. Oh GOD it broke my heart to have her go from being a happy kid, laughing in the hallway of the doctor's office to screaming in pain on the examining room table.

But you know what? One minute later she had completely forgotten about it. I showed her the Band-Aids on her thighs and she was uninterested. She WAS interested in the big stuffed animals that Dr. M keeps in the hallway. So we went back out there and she hugged on them.

She gave the bear a few hugs ("bear" is a new word for her, and the first one containing a definite "r" sound -- "baihh" -- kind of Bostonian) then focused on removing the dog's eyes. She was PISSED when I removed her from her eyeball-removing task, but quickly recovered.

She's a master of the quick recovery and rolling with the punches, maybe every kid is. But today I thanked God and my husband and the heavens above for the time I get to spend with her. Because I'm not that tough, for sure.

For the love of gravel

As I write, The Steelers seem to be losing to Jacksonville. If we were at home, it would be time to drape the mirrors in Terrible Towels...

But we're in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on our last night of a whirlwind weekend in the wilderness with our toddler. And it was truly great to be with our child, I am surprised to say.

She was a soldier the entire time -- no tantrums or meltdowns or even squeaks of protest -- so dazzled was she by her surroundings, and her new love of HIKING and the woods, and all of the GRAVEL in this state. Who knew that Wyoming would be entirely made of GRAVEL due to the geothermic excitement that goes on under the earth here (Old Faithful). And there are huge thrilling peaks (Tetons) and scorched recovering forests (Yellowstone) and ELK out the yin-yang, plus moose, bear, eagles, chipmunks, and highly athletic squirrels that put our suburban fatties to shame.

So all of the creatures, plus the glistening bodies of water and the GRAVEL to be had at every juncture made our visit a sure hit with Babycakes. When she wasn't hiking up rocks and over roots through the wilderness, she was sacked out in her carseat, smiling and clutching fist-fulls of gravel to her chest.

We photographed the natural wonders about 30% of the time, and the rest of our camera's memory card is chock full of Babycakes enjoying Wyoming.

She also loved the plane trips, sitting like a princess in her carseat, sharing tomato chunks with her daddy while I almost barfed from the mountain-borne turbulence. She practically helped with the luggage.

So yeah, she gets to go on more trips. Babycakes has evolved into a terrific traveler, and we're going to take advantage as long as we can!

Cruel

It's the day before my period and I'm nauseous and headachy, and I just want to sleep... so I started to totally get my HOPES UP before I realized that I am at a high elevation (Jackson Hole) and I have altitude sickness out the yin-yang.

The only similarity with pregnancy here is that with altitude sickness, you aren't allowed to drink either.

Grand Tetons

In celebration of my new bras, which have lifted my bosom up to pre-baby status, we're going to the GRAND TETONS tomorrow.

Hub-D went there when he was younger, and explored the mountains with his adventurous grandmother, and now he can't wait to relive that experience. I'm getting a little stressed out about his expectations, because this time he has a (1) Whiney Wife, (2) Year-Old Child, plus two non-outdoorsy friends in tow. PLUS it's supposed to be BUTT COLD and snowy.

My friend L. tried to get me appropriately excited for the trip, conjuring an image of the friendly town streets dusted with snow in the crisp mountain air. But all I can think is -- HOW DO I DRESS MY CHILD? Will she be warm enough? I don't have itty-bitty gloves -- nor are those available in California in September.

I'll just put some socks on her hands? Anyway, we're flying to Jackson Hole tomorrow early, and I should be way more excited. It's the PMS talking, I know.

Pixieland

Babycakes and I were deemed to be UNFIT football-watching companions on Sunday, so I hastily dreamed up an activity that would be WAY FUNNER than football. I took my child to a tiny amusement park next to an abandoned field and some housing projects in Concord, CA.

It's called Pixieland -- originally it was an assemblage of rides set up next to a furniture store in the 1950's. Since then, Pixieland has been shuffled around the Bay Area like a shiny, colorful, foster child until it found its current home by the projects. And man, it was SO COOL.

Babycakes was BLOWN away. First off -- there are BALLOONS. So the whole trip was worth it. Second there is a TRAIN that she could RIDE around a pond chock full of Canadian Geese. Babycakes didn't even know what to say at this point... I mean, do you say "balloon?" "duck?" "water?" -- instead she watched the "hoop-dee" vehicles with thumping music sift in and out of the projects we passed by.

We also rode the merry-go-round, although she wasn't as INTO it as I thought she should be. I mean, you're a KID, and you're on a merry-go-round -- shouldn't you be losing your mind about now? But Babycakes isn't that kind of kid. She is a stare-at-the-machinery kind of kid, so she went up and down on the carousel horse while I told her repeatedly how AWESOME a time she was having, and she analyzed the wire rods holding the top of the carousel together. I made her thank her horse when she got off, and I swear she looked at me askance, "Mom? Are you for real?"

But this place, Pixieland, is so FABULOUS because it's untouched by modern times. No trained dolphins or massive parking lots or frightening "characters" trying to hug you. Not here. Kids are getting their faces painted and their eating Pixie Sticks (excellent) and handing over tickets for these little rides, and well, we friggin' loved it. WAY better than football, we decided.

Update from the Pomeranian

Well, it seems that Midget, the Pomeranian next door, has lived to see another day, no thanks to my complete unwillingness to investigate the alarming sound emanating from her house.

Her owner, G., came home and I accosted him in his driveway in a passive-aggressive manner: "Hi G! You had a strange high-pitched noise coming from your house today, but the good news is your DAMN DOG DIDN'T BARK ALL DAY." Or something like that...

We investigated his whole house, looking for the source of the noise... well, no, that's not accurate. I followed G. throughout his house while HE looked for the source of the noise and I DRANK IN my surroundings. I'd never been inside that house across the street before, and I had a lot to OBSERVE. Like the photo on his desk of a woman his age, whom I've never seen before. Who is she? Someone he met on eHarmony? I have QUESTIONS!

We determined that it had been his sprinkler system emitting the noise, and then he gave me a HUGE JUG of homemade wine. So I guess when Midget starts barking again, all I really need to do is get wasted. No probs!

Dear Moaney,

I heard you over there, moaning during our yoga class, and it drove me BONKERS!

A few moans here and there are fine with me, like when you finally exhale after holding your breath. But not those CONSTANT SEXUAL-sounding mooooans you are treating us to during our practice. You're kind of fluttering your eyes and groaning in a way that is really grossing me out.

I've met your kind before. It's usually hippie-type women in their late 30's who have been told by their therapists that EVERYONE should be interested in THEIR sounds. You brought to mind one harrowing experience of doing yoga next to a super-STINKY couple and they were BOTH moaning throughout the practice, in a way that skeeves me to this very day. There is not enough patchouli in the world to erase THAT memory.

Why oh WHY did you have to moan like that? The instructor was playing that AWESOME album by Krishna Das, who lets STING chant along with him on that album, and I was having a good time doing the Pigeon Pose, and you had to go and make it this PORNO by all your MOANING.

Maybe you didn't know that this yoga class is my only retreat from caring for my child, and that I'm paying a babysitter out the yin-yang so that I might yin my yangs with Krishna Das and Sting and this yoga instructor. Because you WRECKED it, lady, you jammed my chakras and harshed my mellow and I'll GET YOU FOR THIS.

Sincerely,

The Woman on the Mat in Front of You

RIP?

My neighbor G. has a Pomeranian named Midget who, just in the last few weeks, has started barking when he's gone. It's not an occasional bark or two, but a constant, almost rhythmic "yip! yip!" that goes on for hours.

G.'s son had acquired Midget in order to "meet chicks," and now he's engaged, so I suppose bequeathing the dog to his single dad (G.) was the most obvious choice.

Anyway, I like G. a lot. And I like Midget, but I'm starting to think of ways to RUB MIDGET OUT. yip! yip!....yip! yip!... (maybe a poisoned steak...)

I told G. that Midget was yip!yip!-ing, and it seemed to get better for awhile, but now she's back with a VENGEANCE. And her barking has become the most vexing sound in the world. I'm keeping a tally now of when she starts barking, and how long it lasts. That way I can tell G. next time I see him, and maybe also the judge, when I'm hauled in for heartlessly executing a helpless Pomeranian.

This morning, the yip!yip!'s have stopped, replaced by a strange high-pitched noise emanating from G.'s house. It started at 7am and continues as I write this. I inspected his house from afar and I don't think it's a burglar alarm. Should I call the police? I don't have G.'s work number. There is no smoke emanating from the house...

And then part of me thinks... well, Midget is quiet. So even if something horrid is happening over there, my evil wishes may have come true. Is this even OK, to wish a little dog ILL? Babycakes is falling asleep to the sound of the high-pitched brain-erasing noise, and Midget... is quiet.

I'm psychic

There is no real explanation for the psychic stuff that happens with my friend K. (pictured here with a bum foot, feeding my daughter cheese grits in a hotel in North Carolina). We met in our early 20's, but I feel like I've known her for much longer. For one thing, I dream her past.

For a while I didn't know what to make of the spate of dreams I had about K's sister. In the dreams, I was interacting with her sister at various ages, well before I had met her. Then K.'s cousin popped up in a dream. Never K. herself... Just her relatives and her surroundings.

I finally told K. that I was dreaming about her sister and I related a few of the dreams, and she got really quiet. If you knew K. you'd be impressed by that. Like me, it takes a lot to for her to be quiet.

For example, I told her that I dreamed that her sister and her cousin (as kids) and I were going up some attic stairs to have an adventurous sleepover. The stairs were a little precarious and there was exposed raw wood on either side. I kept worrying that my clothes or my sleeping bag would snag on the wood. And we were trying to be quiet, but we couldn't help laughing and goofing off, even though we were SUPPOSED to be sleeping.

After I told her this, K. told me that this was her grandmother's house, and the three of them would camp out in the attic EXACTLY LIKE THAT, including the EXPOSED WOOD on the stairs.

She had never told me this detail of her life, it just came to me in this strange, vivid dream, in which I was seeing it through her eyes.

I then dreamed that I was at an ice rink in Lake Placid. K.'s sister was a teenager, twirling around on the ice very athletically. I was photographing her with a nice camera (you know, with lenses and crap) and she skated over to the side to talk with me.

When I called K. to let her know I'd had another of "those" dreams, I learned for the first time that her sister (before an injury stopped her) had trained for the OLYMPICS at LAKE PLACID as a figure skater, and K. had visited her regularly and PHOTOGRAPHED her extensively as she practiced.

What the HELL!???

I have had several of these dreams over the years. In one, I attended her childhood summer camp through her eyes. "Why was the mess hall on stilts?" I asked K. the next day. "Oh, it was suspended over the lake." "I see."

There have been a few dreams that haven't made sense (yet). I dreamed that her sister was waiting in the mall parking lot for me (K. works at a mall), and was really stressed out that she'd gotten a ticket in Dad's new truck. This hasn't happened... am I now seeing K.'s future?

In addition to this, I also feel her emotions, when they are strong. If I am feeling an inexplicable emotion (anger, sadness, elation), I can usually call her and ask, "Why am I so ANGRY?" and she will let me know why SHE is so angry that day. I was on a business trip in San Diego, early in the morning, and I was suddenly so SAD. So I called her and she picked the phone up crying. Her boyfriend was unsure about getting married, and had just expressed this thought to her. That is why, 3000 miles away, I was sad.

Anyway, I think the whole connection is pretty magical and I'm thankful that I get this unusual window into my friend's life. But here is what kind of pisses me off about it... it's ONE WAY! She loves me a LOT, but she hasn't had one damn dream about my history. And also, it's JUST her. I have had no dreams about other people's siblings. Plus I have had no helpful dreams ("Don't drive your car today, I've had a PREMONITION..."). All I do is visit K. in my mind -- and plumb her for memories.

Owing to this ESP, our joke is that we ARE each other, and we call each other "me." When we call, we say, "Hello, am I there?" For Christmas, I bought her a pair of slippers that say, "I LOVE ME" on them. Because that's our way of saying we love each other.

So today is her/my birthday. Happy Birthday to ME! I can't wait to see the birthday celebration... in my DREAMS.

Enjoying Monk

I love "Monk." I LOVE IT.

In the various hours that Babycakes is sleeping and Hub-D is out and the laundry is spinnin' and I feel righteous enough to allow myself some television, I've been watching "Monk" like CRAZY and it's better than ever this season.

I suspect that it's better because so much of it is improvised now. See, I'm a seasoned improviser (having attended improv classes so that I might meet my husband), I can spot it when TV shows employ improvisation. And it can be SO GOOD.

One warning about the show -- it kind of GIVES you OCD. Having watched so much of the show lately, I find myself obsessively stacking children's toys in exactly the manner in which they were originally packaged, and placing them "just so." I just went over to my pregnant friend L.'s house and took advantage of her prone state to tidy up her toy room in the precise manner in which I like it. Every wooden SHEEP must be partnered with the appropriate wooden HORSE, and all of the plastic RINGS must be stacked LARGEST TO SMALLEST FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

Maybe it's time I went back to work...

Mama, look at the kittens!

My dad sent this to me this morning. A possible glimpse into my future?

In other news, Babycakes is REALLY into our three cats. They try to be coy, but I know they're into her as well. They're counting the minutes (on their itty bitty furry wristwatches) until they'll be allowed to sleep in bed with her.

In the meantime, they clock in some serious naptime in the crib, and they stalk the child wherever she goes. When we take a walk around the block, they follow us up the street, to make sure she doesn't get into any trouble when they're not watching.

This morning, when I was reading to Babycakes in the glider, Otto began wailing at her closed bedroom door. She uncuddled herself from my lap and slid to the floor, talking to me while gesturing at the door, as if to say, "Can you not hear that, woman? A cat needs our HELP!" So I let him in the room.

She came back to my lap so we could review the same boring page of the same Maisy book for another 10 minutes, and Otto strutted over, sitting at my heels, waiting for an invitation. She scooched over to one side of my lap, then slapped at the top of my thigh. Otto leapt up and curled onto that thigh, digging his overgrown claws rhythmically into my skin while we continued our interminable search for Maisy's Panda.

Sunday Summary

* This photo is Babycakes playing simultaneously with a crayon and a leg of lamb.

* She learned to HIGH FIVE today, and up until the moment she lay her head down to sleep, we were making her do it over and over. "High Five!!!" Woooooo! It takes her about 20 whole seconds to complete the transaction, but there is enough "slap" action in the motion to legitimately call it a "High Five." We're so PROUD.

* My house is a mess, with furballs rolling like tumbleweeds through the rooms. If someone from CSI were to investigate these furballs, he/she would most likely determine they are:
- 40% cat hair
- 35% carpet lint
- 10% Babycakes snot
- 10% Panda Puff dust
- 5% despair

* I found out this week that a former boss of mine is saying that I am a treacherous woman and that I "stole his business out from under him." I really wish that I were capable of the clever, evil deeds of which I am accused from time to time. I'm not strategic enough to be sinister, really. I'm good only because I'm a shitty liar. So anyway, I don't necessarily wish my old boss ill. I mostly want him to have mysterious unpickable wedgies for a couple of weeks.

* Everyone is coming down with something. And my child's snot is everywhere. Hub-D just said my forehead felt warm, which is complete justification in my mind for lying on the sofa for the rest of the evening, watching "Monk" reruns and ignoring the furballs of filth.

* I have neglected to fill out whole swaths of Babycakes' baby book. I started working on the book long ago, filled with a fiery desire to remember everything about her babyhood. Now I'm just phoning it in, making up dates that her teeth erupted and not being all that neat about stuff. I mean, hell, she's going to have the Snapfish albums, right?

* Have I mentioned how much I can't WAIT to be pregnant again? Remind me of this when I start "driving the porcelain bus," yacking uncontrollably for the first... oh... 40 weeks of my pregnancy.

You're going to have to take my word for it

Having a toddler is a bit like that old cartoon with the WB frog. In the cartoon, the frog would dance around and sing "Hello My Baby!" -- but only in front of one guy.

With Babycakes, we catch her doing so many interesting things, but when we try to get her to "perform" any of these feats for anyone other than us -- NO DICE.

She calls me by my first name (hilarious) and says "bye" (only after everyone has left), says the cats' names, and sings along with 80's music. But ask her to do it for anyone else and you're out of luck.

If she's in the midst of doing something funny, such as helping me empty out the dishwasher, and obsessing over putting boxes and shoes "away" on various shelves, it's impossible to catch it with the videocamera. Once you've sprinted to the camera and turned it on, she is suddenly sitting in the middle of the room, staring off into space and drooling.

So you're just going to have to take my word for it. The child is a prodigy.

Steelers intercept fertility plans

I can't hide anymore how BUMMED I am that the Steelers screwed up this month's cycle (Hub-D got tickets to the game, and flew out for it, unfortunately exactly when I ovulated this month). I'm thrilled that they won. THEY BETTER HAVE, since they fouled up my babymaking plans... I was afraid, without Ben as the quarterback, that they would not only delay my plans to have a baby by one month, but also LOSE, and that would piss me off to no end. But, they WON! Thanks Charlie, Joey and Troy!

Anyway, the whole process of trying to get pregnant reminds of of dating. A few times in my dating career, I would meet a guy and think, "HEY, this guy is pretty cool, and he likes me a lot too. It must be love!" So easily, I would get swept off my feet only to realize that the guy was NOT that into me (clearly because he was blind and/or insane). After I met Hub-D, I thought, "Ooohhhhh! That's what it's really like to meet Mr. Right. Why did I ever think I had something great before?"

Trying to get pregnant is like that -- I'm waiting, and WAITING, and getting my hopes up every 28 days, only to have them dashed. And my miscarriage was like a broken engagement. I had to return the ring, slouching around, wondering if I will NEVER meet another good zygote. Are they all taken?

And what is UP with the fact that unfertilized eggs only live 12-24 hours? How does ANYONE get conceived? And WHY in the world do my eggs only seem to live when my husband leaves the state? (I started creeping out my friends by suggesting that perhaps I could borrow their mates for "husbandry" purposes. Only funny to me...)

But I had to remind myself that I DID meet a great guy, after years of despair. And I DID meet a great kid shortly thereafter. And I'm 35, which WISE Dr. G. said is NOT a deadline, and I have SO many more cycles to get pregnant.

So if I've got five years and an average of 12 cycles/year, then I really have 60 more fertility cycles before I am too old to have a baby (age 40, according to Dr. G.). And, let's see, if I want to have THREE kids, which is my goal, then subtract about 20 cycles from that in order to birth and wean a second child, then I have 40 cycles after that to use as I please!

And you better believe my eggs will be speed-dating millions of sperm at a time. They're done screwing around at football games, I tell you.

Upside-Down

She reads upside-down.

She'll briefly tolerate my "old fashioned" way of reading to her, whereby she perches on my lap, swiping pages aside until she finds one with a MOON on it, or a BALLOON or a juicy flap she has yet to tear off.

Then, when my child is alone, she quietly turns all of her books upside-down to read them. She just did it in the car -- she has an Italian book featuring farm animals and their Italian names (it kind of makes me hungry to read it, in a sick way... I mean, it sounds like a menu! Mmmm... porcini...). I spotted her fussing with the book for a few minutes then she settled into calmly reading it... upside down.

Elmo gets turned on his head. The Little People Farm Book -- mostly destroyed from a long tenure in the back seat -- gets flipped upside down for her reading pleasure.

Does she have upside-down retinas? Probably.

Professor Stinkypants

Hub-D had the unfortunate experience of sitting next to a superstinky guy on BART on Tuesday. Apparently, a very large man who smelled simultaneously of B.O. and cologne cuddled up to my husband on the train. And now we CAN'T GET RID OF HIM.

After a few minutes of sitting next to the stinky guy, Hub-D moved to another car to get away from the odor, but the damage had been done -- my husband reeked.

I picked him up at the train station and instantly noticed a STRONG odor emitting from him, part-B.O./part cologne. "Have you been hanging around with Germans?" I asked. In the videogame business, this is often the case.

As luck would have it, he HAD been hanging around with Germans, but they had been of the well-kempt professional variety with a surprising absence of cologne. That's when he told me about the superstinky guy.

I sniffed the air once more to verify for my own peevish, jealous mind that it wasn't some lady's perfume, and eliminate the possibility that he had been making out with some female scent-laden marathon runner. But no, this was a DUDE-esque odor.

In retrospect, I should have asked him to strip off all his clothing (maybe burn it?) and go directly into the shower until the odor was vanquished. But I didn't. I invited him into our boudoir, and I RUE that decision, because it's like the stinky guy has MOVED IN with us.

Hub-D is in Pittsburgh today (Go Steelers!) so I woke up alone. But NOT QUITE alone, because that part-B.O./part-cologne odor was eminating with surprising strength from our pillows, sheets and blankets. It's in our bathroom too, somehow -- perhaps some stray article of clothing from the fateful BART trip lingers...

It's hovering around the sofa, and various surprising corners of the house. That STANK! Well, add this to the list of reasons I'm glad I'm not pregnant. If I were pregnant and the invasion of the superstinker had occurred, we would have had to move.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to light some sage...

In praise of sunflowers

Sometimes I make idiotic decisions, especially when I'm in a rash state of mind. A few examples spring to mind... Like when I moved in with a penpal I had never met halfway across the country. Or when I bought a brand new Jetta because I thought it would impress an "outdoorsy" guy I had a crush on. Or Serge.

But I'm here to tell you -- sometimes I really hit 'em out of the park.

Let's just say that you've recently had a miscarriage, and you're still a bleeding mess, spending days on end making other people sad by telling them that you're not pregnant anymore. And you decide to plant a garden. PLANT SUNFLOWERS.

You may recall that I planted sunflower seeds in what I called my "Garden of Grief" (before Hub-D put the kibosh on that particular terminology, as it was bringing him down to have a portion of his yard named after a dead zygote). And about 10 days later, they sprouted. I kept watering them, meditatively wondering when I might get pregnant again, and not really noticing how huge they were getting.

Then today I went back to the Garden Formerly Known as the Garden of Grief and HOT DAMN it was SUNFLOWER CITY.

I'm not pregnant, and I'm not going to be for the time being, due to some interesting timing issues surrounding The Steelers. But I have SUNFLOWERS out the YIN-YANG. If I were having an ultrasound of my yard, the technician would spend about three hours just counting the heads and heartbeats of the sunflowers that I personally brought to life.

And the sunflowers are popular with the honeybee community, so I feel like I'm part of this interconnected circle of life, as my labor is resulting in a hive dripping with honey somewhere.

Primarily, I'm happy to report, that sunflowers are the most satisfying post-miscarriage plant EVER. They are quick to sprout, they are hardy, and their flowers are so MASSIVE and so, well, FERTILE, that I just have to take it as a good sign, that once The Steelers get out of the way, we're going to be in Babyland again.

Go Steelers! Go Sunflowers! Go G.F.K.A.T. Garden of Grief!

Panda Puffs

Don't even start with Panda Puffs. Don't take one bite. Don't justify your purchase saying it's a brand called "EnviroKids" so it's GOT to be nutritious, and somehow be helping endangered species.

Because you WON'T be able to stop. Your whole family will be shoving Panda Puffs in your mouths, not even tasting them anymore, just out of HABIT because they are so damn GOOD and peanut-buttery, and once you intelligently regard the nutrition label, you notice that there is really NOTHING going for them and "evaporated cane juice" is just a hippie way of saying SUGAR.

Babycakes and I got the Panda Puffs because, HELL they've got PANDAS on them! And between that cereal box and the balloons, Trader Joe's was a real hootenanny that day. Plus, she's now ONE year old, so the floodgates have opened and she can start eating peanut butter and pretty much whatever else she wants to put in her mouth (bark chips, rocks, hunks of balled-up masking tape). So the Panda Puffs were a way of CELEBRATING! It was peanut butter and pandas, all in one!

But that was what they call an "emotional eating decision" -- a bad, bad thing. Because this morning found our family grouped on the porch, mowing through the whole bag of Panda Puffs. Even Grandma Rachel had fallen prey to the Panda Puff siren, all of us shoving those sweet balls into our mouths with such vigor that dozens of them rolled down our chests and onto the cement.

The only good thing about Panda Puffs is how, when I serve them to Babycakes (as an excuse for ME to eat another 200 of them) I get to say, "Oh, and LOOK, they're made from REAL PANDAS!"

Weeping stalkers celebrate Babycakes' first birthday

We had a good crowd come over to usher in her official big-girl status yesterday, eating panda cake, singing happy birthday and gettin' busy with her toys. Even the raccoon family showed up (albiet late) by swinging through the cat door and crooning happy birthday in their native language until I ran out and rescinded their invitation.

Hub-D and I loved seeing everyone, and we glowed as we headed into the evening. Grandma R. did the bulk of the clean-up as we wallowed in sentiment, having put an exhausted Babycakes to bed ("Balloon! Balloon! Otto! Balloon!") We looked through her newborn pictures and turned into weepy puddles.

Then, in an advanced stalker move, we DROVE TO THE HOSPITAL and lingered around the entrance, where I had entered pregnant a year ago. "Oh! There it is! There is THE DOOR!" "Do you think they would let us in to see the room where she was born?" "Was it room 7?"

It's funny how the sleeplessness of the last year and the insanely sore nipples (more painful than childbirth) and the doubt and conflict and postpartum clouds were SWEPT AWAY as we looked back on what now seems to be the most PERFECT YEAR OF OUR LIVES.

We resisted the temptation to break into the hospital, but we did cry all over the car, driving through the night, a couple of broken-in, broken-down parents, high on chocolate frosting and our fabulous little kid.

Birthday Eve

At this moment last year, I was excitedly calling my doula, telling her that labor had STARTED! After briefly mistaking my labor for Mexican-food-related indigestion, I realized that my baby was on the move.

I don't know why it took me so long to reach this conclusion... I was already more than a week overdue and actively hiding from my doctor who was hot on my trail for an INDUCTION. I had known that my baby needed to cook longer. (I now realize that she wasn't really 10 days overdue -- the way my cycle works, I probably conceived her a full week after I thought I had.)

I was excited. But that doesn't mean I had packed my bags for the hospital or prepared in any appreciable way. The crib was assembled, yeah, and the glider. And I had washed all the baby clothes in Dreft, meticulously removing all of the itchy tags from the shirts. But I was somehow still in denial that I would have to go to the HOSPITAL to have this baby.

Hospitals! YUCK! I knew I would hate it there. And indeed, once Hub-D and Aunt S. conned me into going to the damn hospital, my labor STOPPED. But it started once again as soon as the doula walked into the room. My uterus knew it was in good hands...

I labored all night and Babycakes finally emerged at 10:03am, September 3. The nurses offered me a Motrin after my delivery and I laughed... why the heck would I start taking drugs NOW? A few days later I would feel differently about stool softener... But anyway...

I remember when she first was handed to me, and I admired her for a few moments, then thought, well, I'm the MOM, so maybe she'll want to EAT from my BOOB? It felt so bizarre and somehow presumptuous to put another person's mouth on my boob and hope that some form of nourishment would result. But I did, and the baby and the boob cooperated, to my amazement.

Anyway, a LOT of memories are floating around me today -- I had no idea what kind of gal I had harbored in my belly last year. She's a Matchbox-lovin', flower-touchin', early-walkin' gorgeous maniac who would develop blonde curls and a taste for driveway gravel before her first year was up.

God I love that kid!