all growed up

Tonight we attended my nephew Nels' graduation from high school. I got a little weepy--in part because I'm so proud of him and in part because pretty much everything makes me cry.

Stupid Daddy and I entertained ourselves during the boring parts by watching the young woman in front of us text messaging the entire universe. Her fingers just flew across her keypad; I've never seen anything move with such speed. It was that, more than the actual graduation, which made me realize that we are part of some other, older generation. And these young people--they can do things that we can't!

Before the diplomas were handed out, the lights went down for a video tribute to the graduating class. That's what they called it, anyway, but all the images were stills, which allowed some jokester graduate to guide a laser pointer around the nipple and crotch areas of the various students and teachers projected on the screen. Stupid Daddy and I could not stop laughing.

At one point during the "video," Stupid Daddy leaned over and whispered, "If you fart in the dark, does it not smell as much?"

Older, yes, but not necessarily more mature.

I never talk about Levi, because he's the middle child and I don't pay any attention to him

Lilah, my former sleep superstar! How your shine has dulled, how your brilliance has faded!

I used to put her in her crib and she'd plug in her thumb and we wouldn't hear from her for the next twelve hours--a routine that we hardly took note of and definitely weren't at all thankful for after two boys who to this day only sleep through the night when heavily drugged.

Lately, though, she's been screaming on and off all night long. I go in to make sure she doesn't have a thumb tack in her diaper, and she puts her fingers to her lips, which sometimes means, I'm thirsty, and sometimes means, I'm hungry, and sometimes means, apparently, You are my bitch. Now dance, woman, dance!

So I give her water, and she lies down. And I think, Oh, that's all she needed. Half an hour later, she's screaming again. So I think maybe she's cutting some teeth and I give her Tylenol, and she lies down. And I think, Oh, that's all she needed. Half an hour later, she's screaming again. So I take her downstairs, put her in her high chair, and give her a snack--some yogurt, maybe, or some pretzels. And we're both yawning and I'm trying not to look at the clock (1:20) and I notice she's been working on the same pretzel for the last five minutes and her head is about to drop into her bowl. So I carry her back upstairs and she cries some more and then it's usually quiet till morning.

After carefully testing these various interventions over the last few weeks and plotting their success in a bar graph, I've come to the conclusion that my daughter is in fact playing me, and I should just let her cry.

After checking to see about that thumb tack.

10:30 and the night's just getting underway

Ezra just came staggering into my office not long ago doubled over with stomach pain. In our many collective years of parenting (don't you hate when companies add up all the years each partner has worked in the industry, and then they say, "Collectively, we have over 327 years of experience," as if that actually meant anything? But I don't mean that, I mean five years with one kid plus nearly four with another plus nearly two with the third, which is completey different)--where was I? In our many collective years of parenting, Stupid Daddy and I have had maybe one bout of stomach upset to deal with.

I am really grateful for this stretch of good luck. But because of it, I had no idea what to do for Ezra. Whenever I have severe stomach pain, I writhe around a lot and moan and talk about dying. It seems to help, but I just didn't feel right recommending it to him.

So I kept instinctively rubbing his tummy and pressing my hand gently into it, which made him scream, "Stop it!" I deduced from this response that I wasn't doing the right thing. Many other mothers might not have picked up on the message, but I'm really sensitive so I could tell.

He seems to have made it back to sleep, with some occasional rather histrionic crying out.

There's a stomach bug going around, so maybe we've been hit. I fear it will be a long night.

Abramson, Snickers and popcorn

The summer after eighth grade, I went to gymnastics camp for a couple of weeks. I was hoping to turn into a power gymnast. Mostly I just got much worse.

Anyway, they had this canteen at night where you could order snacks and have them charged to your parents' account. You told the person behind the counter your last name and gave him your order, and all of a sudden there would be glorious junk food in your calloused hands.

Every night, I wanted the same thing: a Snickers bar and a bag of popcorn. But because I was a very shy girl who hesitated with everything--tumbling passes and conversations with acquaintances and raising my hand in the classroom--I got nervous before ordering my nightly fix.

So as I waited in line (and the line was invariably, thankfully long), I rehearsed in my head-- Abramson, Snickers and popcorn...Abramson, Snickers and popcorn--so that I wouldn't fumble when my turn came up.

I fumbled anyway. Abramson, Snickers and popcorn: that's a mouthful for even the most silver-tongued orator. I didn't stand a chance.

gratitude

Thank you so much, Mom, for cleaning our embarrassingly slovenly house and yard this morning. This task was of the utmost importance.

Yes, it’s true--technically speaking--that you were charged with the task of watching Ezra and Lilah while Stupid Daddy ran an errand and I was off on a play date with Levi. And, yes, when Stupid Daddy came back and asked about Lilah's whereabouts, you were so busy tidying you had lost track of her, and it turned out she was headed down the alley behind the house. Sure, that was a trifle concerning. Cars go down that alley. There is broken glass. It leads to a main street. She is 20 months old.

But that was no big deal. I'm not one to split hairs. At least those dastardly boxes got broken down. What an eyesore! At least the front porch got swept! Dirt and dust are just so icky, and they (potentially) contain lots of toxins, which you wouldn't want your granddaughter to come in contact with--IF YOU HAD ANY FUCKING IDEA WHERE SHE WAS!

Also, Ezra is definitely too skinny and too short, and offering him/chasing him around with/talking about the wonders of food every five minutes is probably an excellent strategy for getting him to grow five inches overnight and gain five pounds. And in general, it’s critical that nothing, I mean nothing, impede the ingestion of calories.

That’s why it was so awesome, when I dropped off the boys at your vacation cottage at lunch time and Levi was having some separation anxiety and crying hysterically at the front door as I pulled away, that you opted not to comfort him because at that very same moment Ezra was ready for lunch. Yes, Levi was still crying when I came back twenty minutes later, after you called to say he had to go home. But at least Ezra was enjoying his turkey sandwich!

I think he has grown an inch already.

bookish

We moved into this house with way more books than we’ve ever had in one spot: books that were in storage in our Vermont house before we sold it as well as books we’ve accumulated in the three years since we lived there. And though the benefits of the open floor plan on our first floor are numerous—I can have a totally unobstructed view of Levi strangling Lilah, there are way fewer doors for me to slam when I’m angry, preparing food for the kids while they sit at the bar making requests makes me feel that much more like their slave—the downside is that we have very little wall space, which means very little room for books.

So in the last couple of weeks, rather than slapping our books onto shelves willy-nilly and buying new bookcases to supplement where we might need them, we have had to sort through our books and decide which ones we were going to hang onto. I kept trying to come up with a rule that would make my portion of the weeding easier.

Following are some of the rules I tested out:

I had to have read the book if I was going to keep it. This appealed to me at first, because a) I always felt that displaying a book I haven’t read was a lie; and b) if it’s sat unread all these years, there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t sit unread forever.

But then I couldn’t part with the possibility this category of books represented, the potential, the idea that I might have time at some point in the future to dust them off and read them—like on a beach vacation WITH NO KIDS and a nice refreshing drink and a hammock—which seems so much more noble than going out and buying new books: like I’m picking up an old dog at the pound, or giving somebody a second chance.

I had to remember the book. That didn’t work because it pretty much ruled out my entire collection.

I had to have liked the book. This one seemed totally reasonable and normal and non-neurotic, which is why it was bound to fail in my case. There were so many books I really wanted that I was just proud to have read, or that reminded me of a particular time in my life—those Greek tragedies I read in high school, when I was hideously depressed and anorexic…those art history texts I read in college, when I was hideously depressed and bulimic…those novels I read the summer after Stupid Daddy dumped me because it was 3am and I couldn’t sleep because I was hideously depressed. Ah, the memories.

Then I started to think about whether the book in my hand was one my kids might one day find interesting—either because it gave them a peek at their mother's old pursuits and passions, or because they themselves felt pulled into its pages. And that was the rule of thumb that I went with.

In general, I have a hard time imagining my kids older than they are at the moment. But as I sorted, I could see Ezra as a teenager, with glasses, maybe, lying all comfortable on the couch, munching a granny smith apple and reading Great Tales of Action and Adventure, so absorbed that I had to ask him three times to come help me with dinner. Or Lilah, at twelve, sitting cross-legged in front of the bookcase, poring over my Catullus, not understanding the Latin, not caring, just reading my tiny, meticulous notes in the margins, knowing that this was her mother’s book, understanding that once upon a time, I too had been a young girl.

preschool geography

Not long ago, Stupid Daddy started a new job that takes him away from home two days a week. The boys are still getting used to the schedule (whereas for me, it has hardly registered that my partner and co-parent is gone for an approximately 50-hour stretch beginning every Tuesday morning at exactly 7:00). One night recently as I was putting them to bed, Ezra asked where his father was.

“Don’t you remember, YOU FUCKING IDIOT?” I said.

No. I didn’t say that.

I said, “Remember? Daddy goes away for work two days a week. He works in Clayton, Georgia.”

“Why does Daddy work in two places?” Ezra asked.

“You mean from home and then away from home?”

“No, I mean Clayt and Georgia.” Or maybe it was Clayt 'n Georgia. Clayt-n-Georgia? No matter how you slice it, it was cute!

In a similar vein, on a recent trip to Atlanta, Levi kept asking whether we were at Lanta yet. And just the other day, he pointed out a Merican flag.

While I appreciate their need to learn the correct way to say things and do what I can to ensure that this happens (shaming, withholding of food, etc., until they get it), I also mourn the transformation of every misspoken word or phrase into standard, non-kid English.

I mean, part of me wanted Ezra to always pronounce tomato "taymo," or call La Brioche, the Montpelier café we used to frequent when he was a toddler, "La Bri-ocean."

Levi just figured out how to pronounce "th" correctly a couple of weeks ago. (I heard him one afternoon, alone on the staircase, saying, "TH...row, TH...row" over and over again.) And though he still has to pause and very deliberately arrange his mouth to get the sound out the right way, I feel like this one small change has aged him dramatically. I no longer see a chubby dumpling when he speaks; I see a little boy.