The Leen Machine

Nerves

2012-01-22T15:24:00.000-08:00

Last month, Sam had the unique opportunity to do something not many five year olds do: he conducted a choir. As part of our fundraising auction for Choral Arts, we auction off the opportunity to conduct Choral Arts at our Christmas concert while we sing Silent Night. Mark bid on and won it, and we decided to see if Sam would be interested in doing it. He was beyond excited, and talked about it on and off for the last few months. We brought him to rehearsal the Wednesday before the concert so he could meet our conductor, Robert Bode, and have a go during practice. Seeing Robert, one of my mentors from college, carefully demonstrate a three-beat pattern while Sam observed and moved his arms the same way was a highlight of my year. Sam was deadly serious about the whole thing and took his duties to heart.

Afterward, Sam and I were standing next to Robert when Sam told me that he was starting to feel like he had a little stage fright. Robert smiled at him and said, "Oh, Sam, that's how you know it's going to be GOOD!"

Since then, Sam and I have had several conversations about nerves - why we get nervous before things, how our body responds, and what it means. One of the great joys about having a child, especially one around Sam's age, is answering questions like this and allowing myself to think about something a new way, or think about it for the first time. It got me thinking about why, after all these years, I still get nervous before performing.

I have such vivid memories of being a nervous performer as a child. My piano teacher always set the program for our piano recitals in order of ability - the most beginner students first, and the advanced ones at the end. For years, I'd request to be put at the very beginning. Getting it over with meant I could sit and enjoy listening to my friends instead of frantically reviewing my fingering on my thighs as I counted down the names left in the program before it was my turn. Of course, it got to the point where my teacher had to put me toward the end in order to be fair to everyone, and the powerful adrenaline cocktail I got myself worked into was almost unbearable. Why on earth was I so nervous, especially when I knew that as soon as I sat down at the familiar keys, everything would disappear and I would be just fine?

As I've mentioned before, I've always been pretty goal-oriented person, and that was the case as a child, too. I wanted so badly to do well, even though I wasn't really sure what that meant. At the time, it meant not making any mistakes, not forgetting my music, playing every note as written. If I could do that, then it was a successful performance and I could go home with my head held high.

I discovered singing when I was in high school. Suddenly, I had this strange, unwieldy instrument that didn't do what I told it when I just pressed a key. It shook when I was nervous, it was subject to any and every change in condition, it was frustratingly different and uncontrollable. It was so....human. And yet, it suddenly freed me. Somehow, facing an audience and exposing this to them was less nervewreaking than hiding behind the piano.

But of course, I still got nervous. I wrang my hands at recitals, waiting my turn, I hyperventilated before auditions for college and eventually grad school. I was still terrified of doing something wrong, of what people would think of me if I did. I have a vivid memory of singing on a group recital at Rice, just one aria. During the time I was singing, I had this strange, out-of-body experience, like I was observing myself sing from over my own shoulder. This recital was the debut of all of the new grad students to the entire music department and patrons, and I had worked myself up into such a lather over what it all meant that I managed to drive my own consciousness out of my body. What if I didn't really deserve to be here? What if I made a mistake? What if I forgot the aria? It was quite an experience, and one that would be repeated with varying levels of intensity throughout my grad school experience.

You know what all of this self talk had in common, though? ME. Me, me, me. It was all about me. How was I going to do? Would I make a mistake? Would I make a fool of myself? What would they all think of me?

Not surprisingly, I took a break from singing for a while. I was so burned out from all the pressure I was putting on myself. I needed to use other parts of my brain and being for a while. I did other things, I had a career for several years that had nothing to do with music, I sang here and there for fun but nothing really serious. I got married. Then, I slowly started to dip my toes into the water again. A piece at church here, an oratorio gig there. A few years ago, I did two things that really turned everything around for me: I started singing with Choral Arts, and I got a gig as a section leader at a church I love.

In Choral Arts and at my church job, I truly discovered the beauty of communal singing, and of singing meaningfully. It wasn't just about me anymore, it was about us. And even more importantly, once the pressure was off I really started to think about and feel another presence: THEM.

Suddenly, they were everywhere....the audience. Why had I never thought about them before? Well, I guess I had, but more in the "let's talk about you; what do YOU think of me?" sort of way. I was so scared of doing something wrong, I had forgotten to really think about who was listening and why. As I opened myself up more and more to the communal experience that is live music, I was more and more drawn into the beauty and partnership that exists there. A woman, listening to a Choral Arts Christmas concert, eyes closed and transported somewhere else by what we were doing. Singing "Come Unto Him" at Fatima's annual Messiah performance, and seeing a man with tears in his eyes nodding with recognition of the truth of the text. I myself am tearing up now picturing all of these people so clearly, and thinking about what that music gave them in that moment. The more I look, the more I see. People sharing, people united, people healed by music.

I still get nervous. But it's not for the old reasons. I'm recognizing now that it's because I have come to care deeply about what the audience will get out of the performance, making sure that I get out of the way so the music can use me and my colleagues as a conduit to something timeless and healing. There are so many people out in the world starving for beauty right now, and we musicians are an honored group to get to provide it in some small way.

So yeah, I still get nervous.

But, that's how I know it's going to be GOOD.

New Year

2012-01-16T11:28:00.001-08:00

Sitting here in mid-January at the computer, I'm looking out at the snow and my un-updated blog and thinking about how I meant to write something here about the new year much sooner than I am. Ah, well. So it goes.

The new year is a great time to take stock, create goals, do some emotional and physical housekeeping, and see where we stand and where we'd like to be. We humans seem to have a need to press the restart button when we can, and this time of year is as good as any.

I've come to the realization in the last few years that I'm a pretty goal-oriented person. This obviously comes as a shock to many of you. Please try to not fall over. However, until recently, I don't think I realized how motivated I am by having a goal. It was just the way I lived my life, charging toward doing, achieving, accomplishing. And I'm proud of myself for doing a lot of the stuff I've done. It got me to and through college with a double major in four years, and through grad school. It got me active and running. However, for much of my life I focused on achieving without really asking myself exactly what I was going for or why it was important to accomplish it. I just did it because it was expected, or enjoyable at the time, or simply put in front of me. Check, check, check.

Living that way can become addicting, and eventually heartbreaking. One of the things I found as I got older is that at some point the accolades and prizes stop. Either you're competing against a self-selected few who are better than you, or you are engaged in something for which there really are no outward prizes. So, when the rewards stop, you must ask yourself....why continue?

The only answer must be that it satisfies in a way nothing else could. The prize is in the process, not the end result. I've found a few of those endeavors in my own life, and seen that the ones that don't meet that standard have gradually fallen away. I've learned and am still learning to just let them go, and to let go of guilt over them. That doesn't mean that these things I am still attempting are easy. In fact, some of them are quite difficult. But tackling something difficult and finding meaning in the process of achieving it? Blessed, worthy, some might say even necessary to our well-being.

So, with that in mind, my focus this coming year is to just be more present. Whatever I am doing or feeling or achieving, whomever I am with or not with, to focus on just being in the moment in the process, to enjoy it just for the sake of what or who it is, not what or who it was, or could be, or is going to be.

Difficult, but worth it.

Control Issues

2011-12-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

I was all ready to post today about how well Sam is doing with the preschool switch, but with a few recent occurrences, I'm feeling the need to wrap my head around something different today....mainly, the idea of "parental control." I don't know a parent who hasn't heard the command that we should "control our kid!" either directly, or indirectly as a blanket statement about so-called permissive parents. Before I dive in, I should acknowledge that there are certainly bad parents out there, ones that don't care what their kids do or how they do it. But it's been my experience that those parents are few and far between. We may not always know how to get a desired result, or we may be tired, overwhelmed, or stymied, but most parents I know DO care about how their children conduct themselves in the world, even when others aren't looking.

When I hear that phrase, though, it always makes me think. Hmmm....."controlling my kid." What exactly does that mean? How would it look in everyday life? How do we "control" another person, someone with their own feelings, priorities, thoughts, desires and motivations? I had some opportunity to meditate on this today.

Sam, Caroline and I went to the park this afternoon to blow off some steam after a day of housework and lounging. He no longer has school on Friday afternoons, so I've been letting those days fall into a more unstructured pattern. We stay in our jammies a little longer, linger over breakfast, clean up the house and do some chores, and watch some TV. It's nice to not have to rush off. But by the afternoon, the kids are ready for a little exercise. This afternoon, we decided to head to a new local park with an awesome ropes course. We went for the first time over the holiday, and Sam loved the three-dimensional spiderweb of ropes to climb up and through. When we got there, it was mostly deserted due to the cold except for a mom with a son and a dad with a daughter who seemed to have met for a playdate.

Time to stop again so I can editorialize. I try really, really hard to not judge other parents. I wasn't always this way. Frankly, I was pretty sanctimonious when Sam was younger. But as I grew into parenting I relaxed a little bit. As I often tell Sam, different families have different rules, and making a hypothesis about the quality or kind of parenting a kid is receiving based on a five minute encounter is patently unfair. People have bad days, check out for a bit, or are just worn down and sometimes what I see isn't their best effort, so I try to be kind. With that said, I present the following while trying to not judge. But it's gonna be hard.

The little boy, probably about 3, had a car he was enjoying. Sam, seeing that, wanted to head back to the car for his own toy and did so, bringing it to the kid for a trade, which the little boy was happy to do. They were playing contentedly together when the mom of the little boy called him over. She informed him that his playdate was with THIS child (pointing to little girl with dad) and he was here to play with HER.

I was....puzzled. I'm used to different parents having different playground rules, but this was a new one. I explained it to Sam and he found something else to do. Over the next half-hour or so, I observed this mom take away the kid's trucks when he started to send them noisily down the metal slide like Sam (I should mention that no one at the bottom or in the vicinity was there to be hit by them, which would have been an occasion to tell Sam to stop), tell him to be careful to not hurt his friend when he wanted to spin her on a toy, and speak sharply to him and give me the stink-eye when he tried to copy something Sam did that was safe for a 5 year old but not a 3 year old. Come to think of it, she gave me the stink-eye a lot.

So, yeah, that was one controlled kid. And to his credit, he was pretty good about doing what his mom asked. But at what cost? The message he was clearly receiving from his mom in that moment was that she expected him to play with the kids SHE wanted him to play with and not anyone else, to play with his toys in a way SHE preferred, that trying new things was dangerous, and that she pretty much expected him to hurt his friends unless she was there to remind him not to. Extrapolating a bit, what is this kid going to learn as he grows, if this is consistent behavior from his parent? Is he going to be comfortable or confident making his own decisions? Is he going to feel like he is a good, worthwhile person with interesting ideas? Will he take responsibility for his own actions? Will he have any personal agency at all?

When people proclaim that we parents should "control our kids," I think this is what they think that looks like - instant obedience and instruction based on prevention instead of correction. And we poor parents can't win for losing. So often, these same parents get criticized in the teenage years especially for being "helicopter parents" - wanting to micromanage their children, make decisions for them, fill out their college applications so they're done right, bird-dog their classes. Often it seems, those same people that think parents these days can't control their little kids are just as incensed when their teenage employees send in Mom to negotiate their salary or a higher grade in their law school class.

Maybe it seems like I'm exaggerating a bit, but I really do believe that it all starts at this age. Kids are not little adults, and they have to learn these things somewhere. Giving them enough room to make mistakes is part of their growing process, and some of them need a little more room than others. Finding that balance of necessary room and teaching social skills is a tricky one, and it's different for each parent and each situation. A playground and an airplane are two different places, for instance. But find it we must for our kids to develop into the functional grown-ups we hope they will become.

And if we get the stink-eye every now and then, well, I guess that's just the cost of business.

Decisions

2011-11-16T09:40:00.000-08:00

What do you do when the one person whose advice you crave is no longer there to give it?

For the last few weeks, Mark and I have been dealing with an emergent situation with Sam and his school. Perhaps I'll go into details on it later, but the short story is that we've had to decide whether it's the right place for him and if perhaps it's time for a move to another school. Obviously, that's a big decision with consequences on either side. Because of the circumstances it didn't seem that there was a clear good choice, and any choice could have some serious and long-term consequences.

Last week after a long talk with Mark (who let me know that he would go with whatever I thought was best), my eyes welled up with tears and I leaned my head on his shoulder and said, "Since my mom died, I've never wished more that she was here to talk to about this." I missed her so much. I knew she'd have the answers I needed.

But I was on my own.

I spent a few days mulling over the various ramifications of each path. I would be moving him in the middle of the year away from friends he'd been in school with in some cases for years, and to a new environment with new kids, and then we'd do it all over again when he started kindergarten. And there wasn't just Sam to consider, there was also Caroline. She is in the 3 year old class at the same school, and is doing well there. It wasn't fair to move her, too, if she was happy there. And how would Sam feel about seeing her get dropped off twice a week at his old school, and seeing his old teachers?

Then, on Wednesday I went to choir practice where I saw my friend, K. K has had dealings with the same school over a similar situation. Her reaction was a pretty uncharacteristically strong one: "That's bull*&#*! Sam's a great kid, you are great parents. Don't let this make you think otherwise." K knows us and Sam pretty well, and is the mother of a somewhat high-maintenance boy herself, so I take her opinion pretty seriously. She went on to tell me that there was still one spot left at the school her son is doing very well at, she wouldn't pressure me and was happy to just listen if I needed to vent, she knew that there were lots of drawbacks and benefits to whatever we decided, and that she knew we were great parents who would make the best decision for Sam. Also, had I thought about talking to Mrs. B, the principal at the school we planned to send Sam to next year? I might find that helpful.

So, I called Mrs. B. She sings with the choir at church on occasion, and she and I are on good terms. She picked up on the first ring, and I went through the list of concerns that the school had regarding Sam. She laughed.

"Oh, man!" she sighed. "Boys just DO NOT belong in our school system, do they? Have you thought about switching schools?" She went on to describe some of the challenges she had with her own high-maintenance son who is now grown and how she felt they made her a better principal. She pointed out with a smile in her voice that she had her eye on Sam at Mass last weekend, and she had a feeling they'd be good friends next year. And I laughed, too. I didn't feel put on the spot or like a failure acknowledging that Sam might spend some time at her office. Her tone conveyed that this was a part of her job that she really enjoyed - helping kids who were a little "more" figure out how they fit into a classroom environment, that she was on my side in helping me as a parent figure all of this out. When I pointed out that I was working on developing the skills to help him, she said,

"Oh, Kate. You already HAVE the skills to help him. You're just finding them. God would not have given you a child with this temperament if he didn't also give you the skills to help him. I firmly believe that."

Breath out.

I hung up the phone with a huge weight off my shoulders. Somehow, in spite of feeling lost and overwhelmed, I had been able to find a way to people who could listen, offer advice, and support my and Mark's parenting. I wasn't as alone as I thought I was.

I thought about all the advice I'd gotten. The old school, with their recommendation that we take Sam to intensive, long-term counseling for what they believed were emotional issues. Our therapist from this summer, who told us after spending several hours with Sam and listening to us that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, and focused on helping us as parents develop some better skills for helping him. The Sunday school teachers who have approached us and told us how much they enjoy having Sam in class, how he is unusually observant, curious and spiritual. K and Mrs. B's observations and advice. My own instincts, telling me that I wasn't being blind to my own child's challenges, that Sam was in a negative cycle with his teachers at the old school and the issues he seemed to be having were, in fact, a result of him being at a place at which he was no longer thriving, and that taking him to therapy for something that wasn't wrong might make it worse.

So, we've started the process of switching Sam to a different school, and as of today I'm working on tying up some loose ends - mainly, visiting the new school and getting Sam's buy-in, and talking to the old school about our decision in an adult enough fashion that I can feel comfortable keeping Caroline there for the rest of the year. So, you know, just little things. Gulp.

And in thinking about this today, I realized something. If my mom had been around to talk to, I might have fallen into a familiar and easy trap: I could have just taken her advice and done what she thought I should do, because that was often what I ended up doing. After all, she was usually right. Instead, I had to seek out and weigh advice from others, something I'm not usually comfortable with. I had to decide on my own who to give the most weight to based on instinct and past history. I had to trust my mothering gut. I might have reached the same conclusion as I would have if I took Mom's advice, but this time it was MY decision.

And in the end, that is perhaps the greatest gift she could have given me: the realization that I can do this, and I'm not as alone as I thought.

Familaversary

2011-10-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm not a particularly romantic person, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. It's been hard to admit that I'd rather get a new vacuum as a gift then a diamond necklace. In general, my gut reaction when Mark would do something like bring me flowers was "Why did he spend all that money on something that will die in a few days when I would much rather he save it?" To me, a gift that is meaningful and romantic is something that sees a need specific to that person and fills it, and it gets bonus points if it's on sale. Maybe for some people that's jewelry or flowers, but for me, it's an appliance.

Mark and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary yesterday, and it was great. We've always seen our wedding anniversary as not just about us, but about the beginning of our family. Obviously there's a time and a place for us to connect as a couple, but our family was born on the day Mark and I agreed to love and honor each other for the rest of our lives, and as such, we've called it our "familaversary." We spent Sunday morning in our regular routine at church, then had a rehearsal for the choir we're both in, then we celebrated by going to Fred Meyer and picking up a Wii. As befits our tradition and particular gift preferences, we wanted something that would be useful for the whole family. We spent the afternoon laughing hilariously at MarioKart and after a nice family dinner out and bedtime for the kids, Mark and I stayed up late playing Wii tennis and bowling and eating really peppery bacon. Now, I realize that this might not be everyone's idea of romance. But when I put on FB that this was the reason I got married, I wasn't kidding. Last night was perfectly romantic, in our own special brand of romance.

There is a lot of focus in our culture on love, at least the brand of it that it values most. And don't get me wrong, that particular brand is great. But it's often actually infatuation - the heart pitter-pattering, short of breath, I-have-to-be-near-this-person kind of feeling. Like most relationships, we definitely started out that way and we still have our moments after 10 years together. But love is so much more than that to me. It's wanting the best for the other person even when its not convenient. It's sharing deeply held beliefs. It's being there in the dark times, or worse, the boring times. It's being able to be alone together. I knew I was in love with Mark when I realized that I could be with him 24 hours a day without experiencing the typical introvert reaction of feeling like I was "on" around others. I could be "off" and it was ok. I could just relax into him. And when I looked forward to a life with him, days like yesterday were what I envisioned. Days filled with routine, family, and just being by each other.

I guess that's where the vacuum fits in. Giving something like that shows me that he sees not just the dressed up me, but the real, every day me - the one that cleans up and keeps the house from being totally overrun by stuff, that takes care of his kids and handles the day-to-day routine - and that he values that. That he's happy he chose me to share this humble life with, and would do it again.

Now, that's romantic.

Ode to a duck

2011-10-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

We had a minor crisis in the Leen household this morning. Emily, Sam's well-loved duck friend, went missing. She wasn't in her usual hiding places - the side of the bed, the car, the couch - leading me to privately worry that we'd left her in a restaurant or somewhere else outside the house, possibly lost forever. I didn't share the entirety of my fears with Sam, but he was understandably distraught and went off to school this afternoon on the promise that I'd keep looking.

Emily joined our family when Sam had just turned 3. We were visiting my mom down in Portland over the summer when she was incredibly ill, and we were all staying in a hotel room close to the house so we wouldn't disturb her. It was becoming apparent that we were headed toward the end. I was stressed and Sam was likely feeling it, too.

One night, we went out for pizza at Papa's Pizza, a sort of local version of Chuck E. Cheese, complete with that grabber machine where you pop in some coins and operate the claw in the hopes of snagging a prize. Bless their hearts, they'd rigged the machine so that it was almost guaranteed that each kid would get a prize (can I hear a hip-hip-hooray for local businesses?). Sam came running out of the restaurant at the end of the night with Mark, having captured himself (with some daddy help I'm sure) a prize duck. When I asked what he wanted to name her, he chose to name her after our family friend, Emily, a little girl who was 5 at the time and with whom Sam had been spending a lot of time playing on our trips. I noted at the time that this was the first time that a stuffed animal had not been given the descriptive name "Lion" or "Cow." This duck clearly had personality.

And she had quite the style sense, too. At Sam's insistence, her hair tuft on the top of her head always had to be done just so, coming to a perfect point with the help of some Sam spit. As one can see from the picture, all this styling has taken its toll on the body and volume of her hair.

We also discovered over the next few years that Emily had a, er, unique voice. She spoke in whistle tone of the likes only very young vocal cords are capable of. One step down from dog whistle range. And she usually has a lot to say, especially at bed time.

When Sam asked for Emily last night after discovering she wasn't in his bed, we put him off a bit, not wanting to put in the work to look, and he eventually fell asleep as he sometimes does without her. When it became apparent this morning that she was missing, a low-grade panic took hold. I called Mark, and together we brainstormed where she could be. Did we leave her at Ivar's when we had dinner there on Sunday? Mark called...no Emily. Did she somehow travel somewhere in the car and fall out? I was heartsick at the thought of Emily sitting somewhere in a puddle. Finally on a hunch, I unpacked the Halloween bags we took to the Halloween party at the community center yesterday, and found Caroline's purse , zipped up and containing something soft and squishy. Unzipping it, I may have actually let out a sigh of relief. There was Emily, folded in half and packed into the pink Hello Kitty purse. Caroline, who is also starting to be won over by Emily's unique place in the family, had packed her in there for an adventure.

Holding her, I dialed the school (yes ,really). I asked the teacher who answered to please tell Sam that we found Emily and she's at home. I hung up, thinking that the teacher probably thinks I'm a little crazy, or hovery, or over-involved. But I know Sam, and I know he's been thinking about her on and off all afternoon. And I didn't want him to worry about her any longer than he had to. So if I take a little flack from a teacher about calling, so be it.

And now, I'm going to take a very well-loved duck to meet her Sam at school, and all will be right with the world. Special childhood friends make it so.

Why I Hate Sleeping Beauty

2011-10-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

I hate Sleeping Beauty. Hate it with a passion. Maybe it's because I've had to watch it about 7 times in the last few weeks, but the plot....well, it leaves something to be desired.

The movie opens at the birth of Aurora. Happy, happy day. And these parents choose this day, the day they know an evil witch will most likely be on the hunt to ruin their happiness (remember, they didn't invite her?) to do something really subtle. You know, thousands of people waving flags, screaming high C's in a song that INCLUDES THE GIRL'S NAME, the usual. Seriously, why don't they just hang up a big banner that says, "HEY, MILLEFICENT! COME ON OVER AND DO SOMETHING EVIL!"

And of course she obliges, in the middle of a wish-giving session. Which brings up, who exactly sets the rules for magic here? Is there some authority? Only one wish per little witch, can't undo the curse but can change it, only bring joy and happiness? As the crabby little blue one says, destroying Millifecent would bring her some pretty serious joy and happiness. Sounds like a reasonable loophole to me. No go, though.

Which brings me to the overly specific and complicated spells. For some reason, Millificent doesn't just kill the baby right there. Probably because killing babies in a Disney movie wouldn't fly. But really, did it have to be that complicated? Wait until she's 16? Prick specifically her finger on specifically a spinning wheel? Because that's not at all easy to get around by destroying all the spinning wheels. Seriously, Millificent, why don't you just invite everyone to your volcano lair where you'll unveil all the details your plan before you destroy them all? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, the witch shows up and everyone's like, "O noes! You mean you're not mad?" Of course she's mad, idiots. She's an evil witch.

And the little witches come up with a truly brilliant plan to hide a baby in a cottage in the woods. Because a baby with three old ladies who suddenly moves into some deserted cottage in the woods wouldn't draw any attention.

Fast-forward 16 years. Now, we're missing a lot of what happened in between, and Disney tries to rectify this by cramming everything that could have gone wrong during those 16 years into ONE DAY, the day of her birthday. Because of course, for the entire 15 years and 364 days leading up to this everyone was on high alert and all was peachy keen, but on the last day they actually have to keep their schmidt together, everyone engages in massive group FAIL.

First, the little witches. I am supposed to believe that this is the very first time they were EVER tempted to use magic? Didn't they raise a baby? I mean, she's a princess and all, but there are still blowouts, colic, and tantrums. And potty training. Good God, I don't know a single parent who wouldn't want a little magic for that. But they're stymied by a CAKE and a DRESS? They've really never done either of those things before? What did they do on the other 15 birthdays, play with rocks and sticks while she wore a potato sack? And then, of course, they send her out by herself on the day Milleficent will be the most desperate with a "LALALALA and don't talk to strangers!" Yeah, I'm sure that'll work.

And Milleficent. You disappoint me. Up until now, you were at least a head above the others, in spite of it all. But NOW you figure out that your minions have been looking for a baby the whole time? You didn't think to ask maybe once in the last 15 years how their search was going for a toddler? A 5 year old? A 10 year old? Consider me let down by your poor management of minions. At least the crow is on the job now (a crow, I might add, that is eventually turned into a statue by Little Crabby Witch, in spite of the whole "only bring joy" thing from earlier. But I digress).

Let's take a look at the parents. Who knows where Mom is. Probably frantically cleaning or doing her hair. Having your daughter taken away by fairies as a newborn has got to do a trip on your head. She's probably popping pills. But Dad....hoo, boy. Your daughter has been missing for 16 years. You're about to see her again for the first time in that long. Not to mention that an evil witch is after her and, as I mentioned, I would deduce that she's getting desperate. So what do you do? What's that? Get drunk with your buddy while singing some stupid drinking song that includes a word no one actually uses or understands? Ding, ding! Way to go, Dad. And Disney. As you learned from Dumbo, drunk idiots in a children's film are never not funny.

So then, the little witches smuggle Briar Rose to the castle BEFORE sundown. Because that's not inviting trouble. And then they're all like, "Let's leave her by herself! Nothing bad will happen!" How do you people manage to walk around without padding? And we trust you with magic?

Of COURSE Milleficent gets her. All you idiots really dropped the ball. And it was THE LAST DAY you had to pull off your cunning little plan. I think she's better off sleeping off the rest of her life if waking up means dealing with all of you.

So, there she is, waiting for the prince in a coma. And of course, her hair is perfect. The three little idiots come up with a plan that actually might work....rescue the prince, point him in the right direction, and tell him to go to there. And they give him weapons because, although they can't change spells, they can conjure weapons out of thin air. Magic Rules, section 105b.

And then we find out something that really makes me mad. Milleficent can turn into A FREAKING DRAGON. Wouldn't this have come in handy sooner? I mean, perhaps she could get her lazy rear out of her castle and do a couple fly-overs instead of depending on pig minions? Maybe she could have just torched the castle and all the inhabitants at the very beginning instead of waiting 16 YEARS? The stupid. It burns.

But not as much as the fact that, in spite of being a witch AND a dragon, she is, apparently able to be destroyed by a sword that THE FAIRIES MUST HAVE HAD THE ENTIRE TIME. Are they too small to lift it? Needed to give it to a human first? Who knows! THEY'RE FREAKING MAGIC, PEOPLE, AND MAGIC HAS RULES!

Anyway, Briar Rose wakes up as Aurora, marries the prince, and dances happily among the idiots, no doubt ignorant of the fact that she should have been destroyed as a baby or in the intervening years if everyone had their crap together, and that it was through sheer luck and MAGIC RULES that she is even currently living at all.

Probably better if she doesn't know.

The roots of empathy

2011-10-05T08:54:00.001-07:00

I remember reading that it is right around the age Sam is now that kids start to develop empathy. Wikipedia (which is never wrong) states: Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion.

There is such a journey that kids have to go through to get to empathy, and eventually compassion. When we think about that journey from an infant who, at least it seems, has no concern for others in their need for sleep, love, attention, and food, to a full-grown adult who (hopefully) is able to feel what others feel and act on those feelings, that path is pretty extraordinary and full of pitfalls.

I think every parent of every normally developing child wonders at least briefly if their beloved offspring is some kind of sociopath. And yeah, they sort of all are. Sociopathy is defined by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. If this doesn't describe all two and three year olds to a tee sometimes, I don't know what does.

Both of my children have always been sympathetic. Both have peppered their pretend play with dolls getting hurt with the attending "awwws" of sympathy as they are getting their band-aid. And I'll never forget soon after Sam was born when I had a full-on meltdown while he was crying, and he looked at me as if he understood that we were both so sad at that moment, that I was feeling what he was feeling. Being able to recognize feelings in others, simply that others have feelings, is important, but not the end of the path.

We were at the Museum of Flight last weekend when I saw this particular corner start to turn with Sam. We'd sat in the dark theatre to watch a movie about exploration of Mars (Sam is obsessed with space and space travel right now), and the film started with a brief piece about the first Mars rover, Spirit. Several scientists talked about its construction and launch, the hopes they had for it, how had exceeded those hopes, and how much the project had meant to them personally. The section ended by highlighting Spirit's last transmission before it died, and then there was a retrospective of pictures that it had sent to earth with some rather moving music. I glanced over at Sam to see what he thought, and he was tearing up. I asked him what was wrong, and he looked up at me with his tear filled eyes and said,

"It travelled so far, Mommy. And now it's all by itself."

I never thought that seeing Sam be moved to tears would involve a robot, but I'll be darned if that's the first surprise I've gotten during this whole parenting deal. I reached over and grabbed his little hand, and he squeezed it tight. We watched the rest of the movie together that way, and when it was over he said with determination,

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a scientist and go to Mars and go get it."

Oh, son, I love that you love that little lost spaceship, and that you imagine that it's lonely and scared out there on the red planet. Not only that, but that you are actually feeling yourself what you imagine it is feeling, and I love that you want to grow up and go get it and make sure that it's ok. I love that that part of your heart and mind is starting to open.

I'll need to keep in mind, though, that empathy can be a blessing but it can also be a heavy burden, especially when you're not used to it. Things get tougher in a lot of ways from here on out. Feeling what other people feel can be overwhelming. I'll do my best to help you navigate all of these new feelings as they come up, and to let you know that what you feel is ok and good. And I'll do my best to model it for you.

Swim lesson

2011-06-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

It's a cloudy, cold-ish June day in Seattle, and I decided to take the kids to the club by myself to go swimming. Sam just got one of those body suits with some floaties sewn into the lining, and that meant I would just need to hold Caroline and could let Sam paddle around the pool on his own. He's been hesitant to make the leap into swimming on his own, and I was hoping that a little confidence in the form of some styrofoam might help him experience it feels to swim by himself.

We had a blast - played Marco Polo, had races across the pool, and played tag. After about a half-hour, though, we reached a point which often happens with Sam: I told him to stop doing something, and he kept right on doing it. This time, it was crawling all over me and Caroline, which Caroline made known she didn't like, and trying to pull the straps on my swimsuit. Since Caroline was screaming and I didn't really want to play peek-a-boob with the rest of the pool occupants, I told him to stop. He didn't. I told him to stop or he would have a time-out on the side of the pool. He didn't stop. So, on the bench he went, where he proceeded to cry, complain, beg and negotiate his way off. I ignored, and then I told him that if he wasn't able to do his time-out quietly, we would need to leave. Any guesses what we did next?

The next act unfolds in the dressing room, where a crying Sam stood in his drippy suit next to Caroline and me while we proceeded to get dressed. I reach over to unzip his suit for him, and he pulls away.

"No!" he spits, "I want to go back to the POOOOOL!"

"Sam, your choices are to let me unzip your suit or wear it to the car and be wet."

"I WAAAANT THE POOOOL!!" Threatening to run out the door, sobbing. I ignore and continue to dry and dress myself and Caroline, all the while Sam is red-faced and in full tantrum mode. Sam attempts to negotiate, threaten, beg, and I calmly repeat his choices, aware that I am being watched.

I glance up, and a kind pair of eyes catches mine. She smiles, and whispers:

"You're doing a great job."

I smile back, and say thank you.

After a while, Sam calms down and begins to get dressed all on his own. Before long, we're joking and laughing together and the storm has passed. Another lady in the locker room catches my eye, and says out of Sam's hearing:

"Look! He's doing great! I remember going through the same thing with my kids. You handled that really well."

Oh, sweet ladies of the OAC locker room. You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that, and what a difference you made to me today. I was telling a friend recently that one of the things I miss so terribly about my mom is how she encouraged me about my parenting and always made me feel that what I was doing was right and valuable. That void in my life hasn't been filled, and I feel it. So often, it seems like I am surrounded by disapproval. I know that's not really the case, but when you're out sailing alone on the sea of parenting as I often am, every little swell begins to feel like a full-on tsunami as you picture every stranger eyeing you disapprovingly, every family member or friend thinking about how they would have done it better. Actually hearing from two strangers who took the time to tell me that I was doing a good job in the midst of a challenge brought tears to my eyes. It also made me think about how I can pay it forward. I already try to go out of my way to say something helpful or supportive to a parent I think might need it, but I know I can do it more often. Now having been the very needy recipient of this gift, I'm going to make more of an effort to give it.

The beach

2011-05-24T16:17:00.001-07:00

One of the very best things about spring and summer in Seattle (when it eventually arrives) is the ability to go to a number of gorgeous, scenic beaches within a stone's throw of almost wherever you are. They aren't the white sand, blue water beaches of postcards, but the ones I loved from growing up - rocky, rugged, and littered with driftwood. We are incredibly fortunate to live about two blocks from Discovery Park, which has within its borders one of the most beautiful and deserted beaches around. Part of the reason for this is that in order to park in the lot at the beach, you need to sign out a special pass at the visitor's center that is only available to people with small children, the disabled, and the elderly. Otherwise, in order to see this scenic beauty you need to hike about a mile from the nearest parking lot down a steep trail. That means that only about 8 people at a time have a pass, and the rest of the people walking through are there for part of their long walk, not really to lounge around. I discovered this little gem last summer, and we've already been there at least 5 times this spring. No people means that I can let the kids run without the constant policing of interactions with other kids, stealing of toys, throwing of sand....not that I mind doing that stuff, but sometimes it's nice to just sit and let kids be kids in the sand.

Today, the sun was just beginning to peek through the clouds around 11, and we decided that maybe today would be another good day to hop down to our favorite spot. We had nothing on the schedule and only time, so I left my phone at home and packed a lunch and the sand gear, and off we went. We parked and picked through the thin trails to the beach, down a steep bank and over the piles of driftwood and got ourselves set up by a log partially buried in the sand. Almost instantly, Sam and Caroline took two different approaches to enjoying their time, and I sat and observed.

Not far off to the left, a group of a few families had set up a tent and some chairs, and all their kids were down at the waterline throwing in rocks. Caroline saw them and clung to me, looking suspiciously at the group of strangers.

"Mommy, can I go play with those kids?" Sam asked excitedly. After I said he could, he was off like a shot down to the water.

"Hi, I'm Sam!" he said to the other kids, most of them a few years older than him. They all acknowledged him, and one of the kids popped off a shot into the water. "Nice one!" Sam said approvingly. The kid that threw the rock, looked appraisingly at Sam.

"You want to play with us?" he asked.

"Yeah!"

Meanwhile, Caroline had grabbed a bucket and toddled down to the water. She stood in silence, observing the waves as they lapped up onto the rocks. Then, she very carefully bent down, picked up one rock, turned it over in her hand, and placed it in her bucket. She plopped her bottom down on the wet rocks and continued her careful collecting.

I sat on my log, looking at my two kids. How different both of them are! Sam is outgoing, social, wants to fit in with interesting kids, and knows how. Caroline is an observer. She wants to get the lay of the land, and then, once she feels safe, is perfectly content to live in her own little world doing her own little things. She's funny, but you really have to earn the right to see that.

Both of them are going to have to learn to live out of their comfort zones at some point in time. Sam will have to learn to be alone with himself, and he'll eventually have to deal with kids that don't like him or want to play with him. Caroline will need to learn that we don't always get to be by ourselves as much as we'd like to be, and sometimes we have to learn to play well with others when we'd rather just sit and look at rocks (can you tell I can relate to that?).

Both of these personalities have their unique strengths and challenges. I'm so blessed that I get to help them uncover those.

My friendship with music

2011-05-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

Part of my involvement in Choral Arts means that every few months or so I get a neat, new packet of choral music in the mail or over e-mail, most of which I'm unfamiliar with, and some of which is often entirely new music that has never, ever been sung before. It always feels a little like Christmas. I rip open the envelope or open the file and zip through it quickly to get a sense of it, see the composers, the divisi, the tempo markings, the languages. I'm always excited because I know that these pieces are going to become friends over the next few months and, even better, I'll get to sing them with friends.

I was describing recently to one of these friends what I love most about encountering new music and preparing for concerts, and it occurred to me how much all of these pieces I've encountered are like the people in my life. We all have friends who serve different purposes, just like all of the pieces we've sung over our lives. There are pieces that are old friends, perhaps with some history and baggage to them - emotional responses from the past, or fond memories of the people we've shared the experience of singing with. For me, many of those are standard rep pieces that I first sang in college or grad school - Mozart's or Faure's Requiem, for instance - that are old, revisited, and loved. A sub-category of this is the old friend that always seems to fit just right. No matter how much time has passed or how long it has been since you have last seen each other, there is something about that relationship that always just works, as if the passage of time and age means nothing. Whenever I pick up Widmung by Schubert it fits, even if I'm tired or haven't sung in a long time. Among these are also the fun friend, the one that you use to blow off some steam. Not really serious, but they know how to have a good time and are willing to take you along for the ride. We all need pieces and people in our lives for that, too.

There are pieces and people that you meet and go, "Meh. Not for me." Sometimes they just live there in your life, either by stagnancy or necessity. They exist on a continuum that seems to extend from decent to intolerable, and often there they stay. But every now and then they do something remarkable and rewarding - they totally surprise you. Suddenly, you hear the composer's intent and understand their soul through a small gesture or a performance, and it all changes. We had a piece like that on a recent concert. The piece in rehearsal seemed static and unchanging, and I'd gotten used to just singing it and doing what I was supposed to do in relation to it. And then we added the solo instrument to it and I heard it in an entirely new way. It touched something really deep in me, and I was in helpless tears by the end. What a huge surprise. I love that.

Then there are pieces you encounter, and you just know that they're going to be amazing, special, and unique. Something about it just clicks. You haven't even heard it with the rest of the parts yet, but you know when you do it's going to be great and it will keep getting better. You might have to work hard at it, but doing so will reveal more layers, and even after the performance is over you'll be looking forward to performing it again. I think one of the very first times I ever experienced this was singing Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms when I was in college. I remember thinking, "Yes! THIS is what making music is supposed to be about!" Every time I rehearsed it and during every performance I felt like more was revealed to me - there was always more to discover about it. When I was asked in my senior oral exams to name a choral piece that had influenced me and why, that was what I picked.

I think I realized in that moment that I would be chasing that feeling for the rest of my musical life. Isn't that what we want most in all our relationships?

Scar

2011-05-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

I have a scar on my chest that's about an inch long. I got it when I was in about the 1st grade when I was running from a friend and decided to hide behind a door and surprise her. I got gashed across the chest by the little thingy sticking out of the door by the doorknob, and, being a kid, I didn't apply a band-aid and went swimming. Bingo, scar.

I look at it now and it always strikes me as a little comical. That part of my body is now a good 2 feet above that part of the door now, and the yoga pose I'd have to do to get them together would probably put me in traction. But there it is.

Does one ever really outgrow something that scars you, or does it just grow along with you? Maybe it surprises you after the pain has passed, or even makes you laugh to think about how it would be impossible for it to ever happen again exactly that way. Life goes on, you grow up, maybe absentmindedly run your fingers over it on occasion just to remind yourself that it's a part of you.

I guess that's how life is sometimes.

Ten years

2011-05-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

"This isn't a day to go to a bar. It's a day to go to church." - Chris Matthews

As we watched the news last night, both Mark and I came away a bit disturbed. The flag waving, screaming, wild-eyed frenzy seemed out of place among death, even the death of a monster, and we turned off the TV and went to bed shaking our heads.

Today, it's still on my mind, and I can't escape one fact: The age of the participants outside the White House and Ground Zero. For the most part, they were young people - college students and recent graduates. Ten years doesn't seem all that long ago to me. I was already an adult, living my life, aware of the danger in the world but still painfully reminded on September 11, 2001.

These kids, though.....they were between 7 and 12. Old enough to know what was going on, old enough to be frightened by the sudden possibilities in the world, but not old enough to have the skills to process what was going on. These kids, scared and confused, were sat down by their parents and told that a very bad man flew planes into a building and killed thousands of people. Did they ever really grow beyond that idea? It's not that it's not true, but when a child is suddenly and unfairly confronted by evil in the world, I'd imagine it would be easy to seek a simple explanation, and to make one focus point the repository for all of the evil that they saw. For a 10 year old, yeah, that's appropriate. But how about for a 20 year old? Did we adults fail them by not helping them grow into a more broad explanation of what happened? Did we stop talking about it right around the time they really needed us to start?

It made me a little sad to see all of the young faces waving flags and cheering outside the White House, but not because Bin Laden is dead. It made me sad for the world they were forced to come to age in, and who these young people have become because of it.

New thoughts on running

2011-04-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

That's what the Tarahumara must sound like, I thought to myself as I chugged along on the trail. I had decided to venture into Discovery Park to run the loop trail, and I was already wondering why I hadn't before. I think between the cougar sightings and the reams of homeless that tumble off the 33 at the Discovery Park stop for an adventure in urban camping, I'd convinced myself that it was deserted and dangerous. So far, the only thing that had given me pause was the enormous blue heron I'd come around a corner and surprised as he sat 10 feet off the trail finishing his lunch. I stopped long enough to look at him, which seemed to make him feel self-conscious. I was also passing and being passed by reams of walkers, dog folks, and other runners, most of whom were crunching the gravel like it was granola and they were starving, me included. I was sort of enjoying the feeling of pounding down the earth, landing hard on my heels on the downhills.

Then, I heard just a faint rustling shuffle on the trail behind me. Was it an animal? It didn't sound like the rhythmic runner's steps I'd gotten accustomed to hearing right before I was passed.

"Good morning!" she said cheerfully as she nudged by me. She was about 10 years older than me, similar build, with a knit cap and shorts over her running tights, and on her feet were a burgundy pair of Vibrams.

"Hey," I panted. "How do you like your Vibrams?"

"Love them!" she said. "My calves were sore, but if you ease into them they're fabulous!"

We chatted about Born to Run a bit before she pulled ahead with a "Have a good morning!" and made her way down the trail in front of me with that quiet, shuffling step. I studied her form closely. Her body seemed very still - no arm pumping or odd gestures, they were just relaxed in a bent position at her sides - and if I had a book on her head I don't think it would have fallen off. Her stride was compact and cadence was fast, and, most notably, her heels almost never completely touched the ground. They came close, but I could tell she wasn't really putting any weight on them. And she was out of sight in no time.

Watching her, I remembered Caballo Blanco's advice to the author of Born to Run: smooth, light, easy fast. I was observing all 4.

I came down out of the woods, and continued my run along the flat, even sidewalks around the park. Let's give this a try, I thought. I shortened my stride and increased my cadence, and concentrated on letting my weight fall on the front part of my foot. I made sure my back was straight and thought about keeping things smooth and easy. I thought about how the author trained by pulling on a rope tied around his waist while running forward, and was instructed to keep that feeling in mind.

A few intriguing thing happened. First of all, my breathing eased up. I'm not sure what my pace was, but I felt like I was running at about the same speed, if not faster. I also noticed that my calves and hamstrings were working harder to keep my heels up. Most notably, I found that instead of feeling like my knee action was driving me forward, the forward drive was coming from somewhere deep in my quads. It felt, at the best moments, effortless and easy. Maybe not so smooth, getting to be light, and definitely not fast....but I'm on the right track.

I came home excited, and (finally!) didn't need to rest my knee, although my heels took a beating on the downhills on the trails and my PF flared up a bit. I'm going to need to figure out how to run those better. I don't think Vibram lady flies down them and lands on her heels.

I was able to recreate that feeling from Saturday a bit on the treadmill today and the results were even better - no knee pain or foot pain at all after the run. My hamstrings, predictably, have complained and the muscles in the bottom of my feet and ankles that are responsible for holding up my heels when I put weight down have also made themselves known, but these are lazy muscles that need to start pulling their weight anyway and I don't feel sorry for them. My totally-not-endorsed-by-a-professional plan at this point is to continue to do my ankle/knee exercises to strengthen those areas, and continue to explore this new form. Just like any technique change (hello, singing), the learning part is going to take me back a few steps in terms of speed and distance, but rebuilding on a more solid foundation is going to be worth it as I up my mileage for the half marathon.

I'm excited!

My 3.1

2011-03-30T12:20:00.001-07:00

Finally, here I am. I'd been pacing the kitchen in my running gear, waiting for Mark to get home so I could make my escape. The longer, brighter days have meant that my runs haven't needed to be confined to the treadmill at the gym anymore, and I'm ready to break free.

Outside the condo, I look to the left and set the stopwatch on the iphone I put in my running belt. I zip my jacket a little higher against the gentle but stubborn March wind and a few scattering raindrops, and adjust my belt so that the bottle compartment rests on my back.

I begin.

My body feels relaxed and easy, my arms loose. Across the street, a runner is heading in the same direction as me. He looks much more like a typical runner - tall, thin, his long legs seems to effortlessly gobble up the sidewalk. In no time he's a few blocks beyond me.

I head up the hill on my traditional 5k loop of the neighborhood. This is the only serious hill on the route, and I'll see it again at the end of the run when I return home. Somehow, it always seems easier at the end. Maybe I'm warmed up, maybe it's shorter and less steep returning, maybe I'm delirious. Whatever the reason, I'm glad it's here at the beginning, too, so I can get it out of the way before I have too much time to think about it.

I lean into the hill, running with my weight on my toes, and feel the weight lift off my quads as I crest the top and fall forward. My breath is now coming as it will for the rest of the run, in a two-step rhythm that dictates my pace: breathe in, step, breathe out, step. I concentrate on filling my lungs fully to combat a creeping stitch after the hill, and think about how I probably shouldn't have filched the kids' leftover pizza right before the run.

I pass the Thriftway with its bold display of flowers out front and continue on the sidewalk toward the Village, the gathering of shops in our neighborhood, about a mile away. I can see all the way down the road to the blinking red light at the place I turn. It seems so far away, but I'll be there in about 10 minutes. I keep my eyes focused up on the road and the distance. I've run this sidewalk enough to know by now where the cracks and bumps are.

The road I'm running on is a main thoroughfare, and although the sidewalk is set away from the street by a greenbelt the sounds of cars whizzing by this time of night is constant. I wonder briefly what they see when they look at me? I've gotten past the point of feeling like a "fat runner," although I still break the mold in terms of typical runner physique. I remember a few weeks ago when I was lifting some weights and looking at myself offhandedly in the mirror, and suddenly an uninvited thought zipped into my brain: "I look strong." That was a first. Is that what the cars going by see, too? It's a small neighborhood, I probably know at least a handful of these people driving by. Did they know I was a runner? Would they ever expect it? Thinking back to my pre-running days, I'm not sure I even registered runners on the sidewalks or roads. Now, it's sort of like being pregnant and seeing pregnant women everywhere. Everywhere I drive, I see runners on the road. I find myself wondering if they're training for something, checking out their gear, wondering how far they've run and how far they have left to go, if they think that hill they're running up is hard. If there are any runners in those cars, they are thinking the same thing about me. And they might be just as jealous as I am when I see my brothers and sisters out on the road instead of where I am, trapped behind the wheel.

If I register with the non-runners, they are probably thinking I'm borderline insane, as the rain has now started in earnest. It's not the large drippy rain that other climates experience, but that uniquely Pacific Northwest rain shower that is more of a really dense drizzle. My face is covered with condensation, and large drips accumulate on my eyelashes and the tip of my nose. I thank myself for remembering my jacket. I've turned by the church now and am passing the ball field on my right, where the baseball players are huddled with the coach in the covered dugout, listening to instructions for the next practice. They've ended early because of the rain. Those kids don't know what they're missing, trying to stay dry like that.

I turn the corner to the right to circle the ballfield and make my final approach to the village. I only know this because I've been here so many times, but this will be a long, gradual downhill all the way to my next turn, one of those downhills that you really only notice because you once tried to run it in the opposite direction and realized that yes, it is a hill. I've been fooled before by this hill, when I forgot to enjoy it until it was too late and it was over. I let my body fall slightly and revel in the more open pace while I let my breathing come a little easier.

Now, I'm in the village and making my second right turn around the ball field. I have a flashback to a year ago, when Mark threw on his running shoes on a whim and ran to the Village and back. He came back sweaty and happy. I didn't think I'd ever be able to make it to the Village and back running the whole way, and he got up one night and did it because he felt like it. I was insanely jealous.

I view the slight hill at the end of this block. It's short but steep, and a precursor to the slow incline for the next block after the corner that is the sibling of the slow decline I enjoyed just a few minutes ago. For a while it was my Waterloo on this course, the place where I needed to walk to catch my breath for a minute before running home. Now, I concentrate on running on my quads and return to my pace around the corner, and cruise by the middle school on the home stretch.

I enjoy this mile of flat sidewalk as I always do, getting into my typical post-two-mile mindspace when I really feel the benefit of the run, readying myself for that final hill. When it comes, I'm always surprised that I'm halfway up it before I really even notice I'm climbing. The way down is steep, steeper than it's sibling ascent on the other side, and I let my body fall down the hill again, my arms loose and useless at my sides. I don't think I could stop if I tried.

And back I am at the door of the condo. I fish out my iPhone and notice that at some point around 2 minutes it got jostled and stopped, but it doesn't really matter. As I wait for the buzzer to be answered, my friend from the beginning of the run passes going in the other direction. His long legs are still devouring the cement, and I'm sure that he's covered at least twice as many miles as me. We nod at each other as he passes, and I notice that his clothes are just as soaked as mine, his drenched hat is now in his back pocket.

"I'm back," I pant into the speaker when Mark answers it, although my heart rate has already slowed quite a bit. As I walk toward our door, it's already open for me in anticipation of my return. I walk through it, and three faces turn to me.

"Are you runned, Mommy?" asks the two-year-old, with her typical sweet, expectant expression. Just a few weeks ago, she had grabbed her shoes and headed toward the door with them, declaring that she, herself, was going for a run.

"Yeah, baby," I replied, "and it was great."

Waiting for a sign

2011-03-29T17:47:00.000-07:00

When do siblings really become siblings? I think I caught a glimpse yesterday.

Caroline and I went to pick up Sam from preschool and his wonderful teacher, Polly, said with some chagrin that Sam might be a little upset. Apparently, he had wanted to color me a picture about 3 minutes before the end of class, but she told him there wasn't time to get out the paper and crayons. He promptly burst into tears, very uncharacteristic behavior at school for him. I was feeling rushed and didn't really talk to him about it as we headed for the car.

But Caroline noticed. Sam got in the car with his stormy face, and Caroline perked up right away.

"Hi, Sam!" she chirped, waving.

"Hi, Caroline," Sam droned, making his way over to her seat.

Caroline reached up and touched his face.

"Ohhh," she said with sympathy, "Were you class leader today?" Making a guess about why he was upset.

"No," said Sam. Then, he gave her a hug. They held each other for a moment, then they separated and looked at each other and she patted his cheek again.

"Love you, Sam."

"I love you too, Caroline." Another hug.

Did I mention that I was standing by the car in front of the preschool, trying to not bawl?

When you're the parent of two kids, much of your time is spent trying desperately to not let them fight like rabies-ridden badgers in a sack. You wonder if you might as well buy a black-and-white striped jersey and whistle and start selling tickets, because this is just how it's going to be and you might as well make some money.

And then, something like yesterday happens, and you realize that no matter what happens to you and your husband, they will always have each other to look after and be looked after by. The thought somehow makes all the refereeing worth it.

Where was I?

2010-12-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

I'm not really sure what I'm going to type here, but I am totally certain that the 5 entries I managed this year is completely lame. I was a little busy, to be fair. Did I mention I did two triathlons and a handful of 5ks? And didn't die? I also shepherded procurement for the Choral Arts auction while singing in the season, held down my new church job, trained like a maniac, and chased an increasingly mobile toddler around the house. Incidentally, I started drinking coffee again. That might be related.

Maybe much of what kept me away from here for so long was that this is very much associated with my mom for me, and there was a lot of grief deposited here for many months. I didn't really want to go revisit that. Plus, it's so much easier to be witty and avoid my feelings in small 140-character-or-less snippets on The Facebook.

But a lot has changed for me since March. Physically, I feel stronger and more confident than I ever have before in my life. I went from screaming silently underwater at my own bubbles in waist-deep water to completing several open water swims this summer, complete with weeds in the swimsuit, fish flitting underneath me, and boat wake in the middle of Lake Washington. I ran an entire 5k in about 37 minutes, and will be running my first 10k at the start of the new year. I saw my dad and my brother tear up when I crossed the finish line at the Skoggins Valley Tri on my birthday in September, and convinced them to do the Olympic distance with me as a team next year.

Emotionally, I'm better. Probably typically, I didn't really realize what bad shape I was in until I looked back at how I was feeling in the months after Mom died. I found myself this fall completely dreading the winter in a way I never have before, and when I really thought about why, I realized how severely depressed I had been last year at that time, and how I was dreading the increasing dark. As a side note, I got my vitamin D checked and it was severely low. It's amazing, though, what some vitamin therapy will do!

I find myself now being constantly reminded of her, but not in the ponderous, over-reaching ways of this time last year. I spend a lot of time thinking about and noticing things that would have made her laugh, things I would have called and told her about randomly throughout the day. And I still tell her, and I still talk to her about them.

Anyway, I don't want this to just be about my mom, although I don't want it to NOT be, either. I've taken on a new challenge for the new year: training for a half-marathon. If you had asked me two years ago if it was even possible for me to think about, I would have snorted with laughter, and then hid just in case you were serious. Now, running has become my sanity. When I have a good run, I am zoned, fluid, steady, almost drooling with relaxation. Every part of my body works together in perfect balance. I told Mark, it's like I turn into some sort of running zombie. Miiiiiiiiiles.....miiiiiiiiiiles......

We'll see what the new year brings.

Me This Morning, or The Sad State of A Mother Suffering from Sleep Deprivation and the Aftereffects of T-box.

2010-03-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

Well, crap. I need to get up to go swimming. But darn it, my eyes won't open. Ok, ok, I'm up. Wait a second....why do we have a ladder instead of stairs? Hold it....is this a dream? (opens eyes) Yep, there's my pillow. That was a dream. Ok, I'm really going to get up now. Feet on the floor, I'm walking, walking, going up the stairs....hold the phone! These stairs, they don't stop! I'm in our inaccessible attic! How the hell did that happen? Wait a second, I think I know what's happening here. Yep, there's my pillow again. Still a dream. Ok, FOR REAL I'm going to get up now. Yes, yes, I can feel my body getting out of bed, boy am I stiff. Going up the stairs, here's the kitchen...wait a minute, I didn't know Laural was coming over! And why did she put all my feminine hygine products in the sink? Ok, now I'm pissed. I REALLY thought I was awake that time.

This happened, kid you not, about ten times before I actually got up. And I was seriously mad about it.

I eventually made it to the pool.

Random thoughts from the blur

2010-03-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Random thoughts to sum up the past few weeks...

1. When your husband is a lawyer, life sort of sucks when he has a trial.

2. It is entirely possible that Caroline has a "Cry" button on the bottom of her right foot.

3. One cup of caffinated coffee after a 5 year break sure packs a punch!

4. Target is not just a store....It's a destination. Now, if they only had a play area adjacent to a bar from which t-box juice flowed freely, I'd be all set.

5. When your three-year-old says loudly in Target, "Mom! Wouldn't it be awesome if we could just stay here forever? We could eat PEOPLE!" and then starts laughing maniacally, you may get some strange looks.

6. When you smell poop in the Target parking lot, it's best to not investigate. Seriously, just don't.

7. A lot of these are about Target.

8. There is, at this moment, a T-box sitting in my nearest cupboard, open and ready to go. "Come," it says. "Drink me....."

9. Concert week + race day + Mark's trial = tired me. See, I can do math!

10. Met goals on the race (run first half, finish in under 45). Not so awesome? Getting passed by the 80 year old with the prosthesis.

11. That list of spring cleaning items that Martha provided sure is neat, sitting there on my kitchen counter.

12. Snacks help everything.

13. So does alcohol.

Steps...

2010-02-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Caroline turns one

2010-02-08T16:35:00.001-08:00

So typical for the second child. Here it is, two days after her birthday, and I'm finally getting around to posting about it! I am at the moment typing while Sam is engrossed in his Geotrax movie (poor guy has a cold and a fever), and Caroline happily entertaines herself on the floor with a Nerf ball. She's regularly standing up on her own now and we've glimpsed a step or two, but nothing dramatic. She's a very careful little girl - so unlike her brother - and always tests, watches, observes, thinks about...and then she finally tries it. I'm convinced that one day she'll just up and walk across the room.

On the day of her birthday, I woke up early to go for a swim and had some time to reflect while driving in the cold to the pool. I had a lot to digest regarding Caroline's first year.

I was thinking about how gentle Caroline's entry into the world was, how unobtrusive. It was hesitant, too, waiting for just the right moment. She faked me out regularly for about two weeks before she finally decided to come, and even then she took a little break to let me watch Grey's Anatomy the evening I was in labor. Just like her...careful, observant, even thoughtful in a way one wouldn't normally think a baby could be.

I thought about how her infancy will always be tied to losing my mom. Her birth was the very last time my mom would come up to Seattle to visit, although I didn't know it at the time. When she was 5 months, she was a model car passenger and guest on a last family trip to Sunriver. I love looking at the picture our friend Pam took of me laughing with Mom while nursing Caroline. She was so remarkably flexible during our trips up and down I-5 during the fall, and a solid anchor for me to my family when Mom died in October. What is truly amazing, though, is that she has managed to both keep me human and sane during a time in childrens' lives that most parents report feeling exactly the opposite. How this happened, how I was sent the perfect baby for the perfect moment, is nothing short of a miracle to me.

So, Caroline, while I drove to swim and turned all of this over in my head, I saw that the sunrise was coming over the horizon and tinting the scant clouds pink, and the cherry blossoms were just beginning to peek out from their places on the trees. And I realized that every year on your birthday I will remember how no matter how dark and long the winter, spring is coming. There may be a few more cold snaps and surprises, but it's coming just as sure as those blossoms will eventually become flowers. Babies always grow, things always change, trees always bloom, hearts always heal. You have helped me realize that this year. I don't know what I would have done without you.

Sledding day

2010-01-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

I've been writing a bit lately about how difficult it has been to mom Sam right now. The tantrums, the testing of boundaries...part of it his intense personality, and part of it is just that he's three (this too shall pass...this too shall pass...). There are times, though, when the urge to sell him on Ebay is not quite so overwhelming.

A few weeks ago, we decided to make the drive up to Snoqualmie and attempt to get a pass for sledding. Since I have the most snow gear, we decided that I'd go with Sam, and Mark would stay with Caroline in the warm lodge. So, Sam and I bundled up and hiked in our boots across the snowy field to pick out our tube and get in line. Snoqualmie has a very well groomed tubing area with about 10 lanes. There's a steep drop and then a long, flat length in each lane. The whole things is about a football field's length.

The first time, we attempted to go together. These tubes are a step up from the ones I used when I was a kid. They have these canvas jacket thingies that zip over them with leather handles, and if you're small enough you can sit right inside the hole in the tube. Suffice to say, I am not small enough. So after one terrifying backwards rocket down the hill with me perched on top of the tube and Sam on my lap, I asked him if he'd like his own tube so he could go by himself. He enthusiastically said yes. So, after I walked by him while he rode up the hill on the rope tow, I helped him pick out his own tube.

One more long wait in line, and we were ready to go. After some pretty specific instructions about hanging on, staying in the tube, etc, I gave him a little push, and off he went. Then, I jumped tummy-down on my tube and rocketed after him head- first.

About halfway down the hill, it became apparent what a little push Sam had gotten compared to my leap onto my tube. I was gaining on him...fast. As he came to a halt at the bottom, I was frantically trying to steer by dragging my feet and yelling, "SAM! STAY IN THE TUBE! STAY IN THE TUBE!" But there was nothing I could do. Bam! I bounced into Sam's tube hard, then spun around, bounced off my tube, and totally wiped out. I frantically turned around to assess the damage...and Sam was laughing. So, I started laughing, too.

"Are you guys ok?" asked the concerned teenager who came down behind us.

"Oh, yeah, we're great!" I laughed.

Back we went to get in line for the tow. At this pace, I thought, we were only going to get one or two more runs in before our time was up. It would be so much faster to just walk up the hill and pull Sam behind me...

It was about 3/4 of the way up that I knew I was in trouble. There was no way my rainboots had the traction for the last incline while pulling 30 lbs of Sam. Rather then see him careen down the hill while toddlers scattered like bowling pins, I asked him if he could get out and walk.

"Mmm-hmm!" He said cheerfully, popping out. So I turned and walked...until I heard a commotion behind me.

I turned around to see Sam sitting on top of a complete stranger in his tube on the rope tow, both of them laughing. He had slid down the hill and right into the 20-something's lap. Both of them thought it was hilarious, and Sam happily rode up the rest of the way, thanking him at the end for the ride.

I don't have much experience with other three year olds, but I know enough to realize that that day could have been a disaster. Another child would have gotten scared about getting hit by another tube, or would have freaked out about suddenly sitting on a stranger's lap. Either event could have been a disaster. A cold, wet, far-from-the-lodge disaster. Instead, Sam has a remarkable gift for taking risks, and for managing to charm his way around sticky situations. He has those qualities in common with some of the most successful adults I know. I only hope that I can remember that, and help him shape and nurture those gifts. Otherwise, keep your eye on Ebay.

Quick! Before I forget...

2009-12-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

...a few Christmas moments I want to embed in my brain...

Caroline oohing and ahhing at her new baby doll, especially the blinky eyes.

Sam solemnly saying after seeing a Nerf gun commercial: "I can't have one of those. I'll shoot my eye out."

The complete fog that can only be brought about by 17 hours of preparations followed by Midnight Mass.

Seeing my dad and my brother in the pews at Christmas Day mass, and realizing that once again the four of us are together as a family.

Caroline, after crying when he got near all during Thanksgiving, crawling up on Papa's knee.

Papa, Nick, Pops, Craig, Ana, Alexandra, me, Sam, Caroline and Mark completely overrunning our tiny condo from top to bottom on Christmas Day, and me not caring about the mess.

Being able to put together a (mostly) lovely meal for people I care about.

Hearing "I want that on my Christmas list!" for the last time, at least for a few months.

Remembering that, like labor, Christmas preparations are intense, thankless, painful and arduous when you're in the midst of them. But, when you see the result, not only is it worth it, but you somehow find yourself eager to sign up for it again.

Christmassy Christmas...

2009-12-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

Today I am feeling: Tired! Mark’s work party was last night, and I’ve now had my fill of the middle aged overserved dancing to funk. I know everyone complains about the spousal work holiday party, but I was actually looking forward to it, and it didn’t disappoint. I’m sure that’s partially because we have a great babysitter in our rolodex now, and, thanks to my new singing gig, the occasional pocket change with which to pay her. That means that in addition to the party, we have tickets to a show at 5th avenue (thanks, Bob!)for next week, and Mark will actually get to come hear me sing at the Choral Arts concert this weekend. Hooray!

I've also decided that I'm done being sad, for at least a little while. Thanksgiving was tough. It was hard to be in the same places and do the same things with the same people, except for Mom. I know it's going to sneak up on me now and then, of course. Last weekend, for example, we were at a toy store with Pops showing Caroline the dolls (Pops got her one for Christmas..shhh, don't tell), and I got a little sad thinking about how much fun it would have been to tell my mom about her cute reaction to them, and how right about now Mom would be doing all of these girly little firsts with her, like showing her dolls, or looking at Pretty Ponies (my personal obsession, btu we won't go into that). But Pops was there, and wanted to buy a doll, and did instead. I am so grateful that there are people in my kids' lives who are and will step up to the plate in those ways when the time is right.

Exercise: Blah. And again, blah. I went exactly once last week. Since Sam switched to the Tues/Thurs preschool (more on that later), it’s been somehow easier to find other things that just must be done during that time. I’m thinking about just sucking it up and still going M/W/F and paying double childcare for both of them. I know I’ll feel better.

Caroline: Cruising! Pointing! Saying stuff that might be words! In English! And eating. My golly, the girl is an eating machine. She will no longer let me feed her with a spoon and instead prefers to just grab handfuls of mash off the highchair tray and smash it into her face with her little palm. We got weighed again, and although she’s gained well, she’s still in the 25th percentile. Our doc isn’t worried, and said that she’s going to be burning off a lot of fat now that she’s moving around so much, and this just mioght be her new track. So, I’ve got a petite little lady who can really pack it in.

Sam: So, as I alluded to, we’ve switched preschool days. Same preschool, different class. Basically, there were a ton of boys, several older, in the class that were basically riling Sam up, as he tends to get around lots of high-energy kids. I had a fabulous conference with all three of his teachers, and they very nicely suggested that I bring him to both classes in one week so they could more directly compare, and I came and observed, too, on Thursday. He was indeed calmer, and the kids seemed more in line with him developmentally. He’s talked about one of the girls there a bit, so I think he’s made a little friend, too! More completed art projects are coming home, and he’s not a super-crab when I pick him up. All good things.

Sam also just received a letter from Santa. Since I’m assuming that no kids read this blog, I think it’s safe to tell you that Sam wrote a letter and put it in a large envelope, I addressed it to “The North Pole” (actually a post office in Alaska listed on www.usps.com as participating in this program), and then when he went to bed I wrote him a letter from Santa and popped it in an SASE inside this larger envelope and mailed it off to the Alaskans. And darn those nice Alaskans, they postmarked it from the North Pole and sent it right on back to us! Sam was thrilled, and it’s now sitting on our piano in a place of pride.

Projects: Christmassy Christmas things! We have baked lots of cookies, made stockings to hang on the piano (no fireplace,of course), decorated the tree,

In store: Pictures with Santa! I may whisper in Santa’s ear that he should ask Sam if he got his letter....

Caroline crawls (sort of....)

2009-11-12T18:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, now for something happy! Caroline makes her way toward me in her own Carolineish fashion. Listen closely, because I think there's a "mama" in there, too...

Warning shot

2009-11-10T19:31:00.000-08:00

I don't know if this just applies to me, but I find that when I'm in the middle of something intense, I don't see the big picture. Ok, now that I write that, it sounds totally normal. But I'm trying to forgive myself for it.

Caroline had her 9 month checkup on Friday, and, apart from being happy, healthy and smiley, she actually lost weight from her 6 month appointment. She dropped from the 75th to the 25th percentile in 3 months. Our doc didn't seem too concerned because she is otherwise thriving and just wants her back for a weigh-in next month, but I can't stop beating myself up about it.

Yes, I had noticed that she was fussy, and refusing solid food on many occasions. While frantically running up and down the I-5 corridor and back and forth between various hotel rooms and my parents' house, I would frantically nurse her before running off, then forget to even bring solid food to offer on our many restaurant meals. Our store of frozen baby food ran low, and I relied on store-bought fruits, with very little variety or calories. I figured she would nurse more, and usually she did. She also still sleeps right next to me, with an open buffet all night long if she chooses to partake.

She was teething, I thought, or her cold was affecting her, or she was just "off" because of all the travel. What scares me is that it never even crossed my mind to think about this even further. And really, I'm trying to not beat myself up about this. But, this is exactly what I'd feared would happen in my dark moments...that my grief would eclipse the needs of my children. There it was, writ large on the baby scale. And I didn't even notice it was happening.

Right after the appointment, I went to the Ballard Market and bought ingredients to make up a plethora of healthy, filling, yummy food for her. The moment I walked in the store, no fewer than three people cooed at her, how cute she was, how good. I walked over to the bulk food section and started discreetly bawling. She is good, she is so cute, and I hadn't been taking care of her. Not only that, but I realized I was desperately missing calling my mom, something I did after every doctor appointment. This was the first time I couldn't. I also realized that while I so badly wanted her reassurance about all of this, the very fact that she was gone was the reason the situation existed. Somewhere in a parallel universe existed a baby who had been well fed and nursed, who wasn't under a tremendous amount of stress over the physical and emotional absence of her mother, and who had a grandmother who would be answering the phone to hear about how much she'd gained and grown, and how enchanted the doctor had been with her in every way.

I was so angry.

And then, I gathered myself and my purchases up, went home, and cooked like a fiend. I made rice and lentils cooked in broth and blended, sweet potatoes, avocado, yogurt and bananas...I cooked and blended until almost all the produce was gone, and the freezer was full. I still don't feel completely better. But Caroline is smiling, and eating, and shoving apple and pear pieces in her mouth, devouring a half-cup of plain yogurt in a go, and smacking her lips for more lentils. All I have to do is take out the Cheerio box and she grunts and waves her arms in her seat. She gets all the food I can possibly offer her, and nurses whenever she wants. This is all much, much better. But the warning shot grazed a little too close.

All Saints Day

2009-11-01T19:54:00.000-08:00

This space has been empty for a long time. What does one write after one's mother has died? There's everything to say, and nothing to say. I told Mark last night that I feel like somewhere in my soul there's a deep, dark pit with my mom's name somewhere in the bottom, and I keep walking to the edge and peering in, then skittering away. Someday, I may fall in. But by then, it's possible that the hole will have filled a bit with dirt and time, and the fall won't be as great. Maybe it will fill completely, and I'll never fall. But the scar of the hole will always be there.

I've felt it already in the last couple of weeks since she left. Taking a picture of Sam, and suddenly realizing that I'll never show it to her, or Caroline cruising along the couch, and thinking about how she'll never see her walk. It's so easy to get caught up in the unfairness of it all. But is this what I'm supposed to do? Is this how grief is? All the books make you think that it's one long linear process, but now that I'm in it, I don't know at any given moment where I am in it, and what's next. I've already had so many surprises, good and bad, to believe any more in what to expect. I thought, for instance, that I would be sad, but mostly relieved when she finally died - mostly happy that she's finally free from pain. And there are those thoughts. But the overwhelming sadness that I've felt...I was totally unprepared for it. I was also unprepared for how grateful I was during the time leading up to the funeral to be busy and rock-solid, providing strength for others, even enjoying all of the old friends who came to her service. But now that life has returned somewhat to normal, I'm a little adrift. I think I just need to accept this feeling for now.

Funny how my kids have provided the most guidance on this strange path. Leading up to mom's death, both seemed edgy, unsettled. I prepared myself for the onslaught of emotion after it finally happened, and I told Sam about it, holding him in bed in the morning of October 20th. The amazing thing, though, is that it's almost as if a weight has been lifted from Sam. It's easy to forget sometimes that he's three, and three-year-olds like tangible, understandable, definite things, even if those things are negative and undesirable. Grammy has died. He went to the funeral and sat quietly and peacefully all the way through it, perhaps grateful that, finally, this was something permanent that he can understand, not the iffy, mommy-might-go-to-Portland-this-weekend, something-might-happen-to-Grammy-soon land he's been living in for the past year. He's talked about her a lot, easily slipping into the past tense that I have so much trouble with. And, blessedly, he's been liberal with the I-love-yous, the hugs, and the snuggles. My little man knows how much I need them right now, I think. Caroline, too, has become more settled, happy to be back in her routine, settling back into easy, milky smiles and grateful to be in my arms. And I think this is how my mom would want this to be happening with them.

I know it gets easier. The hole beckons, and I let myself look a little bit at a time, knowing that I have to manage this so I can still mother my kids and be a decent wife. The sucker punches to my gut when I think about how she no longer exists in this world will lessen, the ache when I look at pictures of her eventually will soften, too. This will all pass. But God, I miss her.

Fall

2009-09-04T23:47:00.000-07:00

Today I am feeling: A little wistful, a little nostalgic. Today is my birthday. And as birthdays go, it’s just sort of what one would expect of a thirty-something birthday. On the whole much better than last year’s, when I was down in Portland on my own with Sam while my mom was in the hospital and Mark had to return to Seattle to go to work. It was a sad, lonely, exhausting time.

I’ve always loved the fall for lots of reasons, my birthday being one of them. It was always the start of something new - the start of the school year, a new city, a new job. It’s when I got married and moved across the country, it’s when I found out I was pregnant with Sam. I think of myself as an optimistic person, so these changes were always looked forward to. But, looking back, there was plenty of heartache to go along with some of those changes, heartache I didn’t always see coming. Now that I’m older, I think I’m better at acknowledging those possibilities, although I like to think I haven’t lost my essential positive outlook.

As I type this, it is looking extremely likely that I will be losing my mom soon. On good days, I am able to look at this as a change that I and our family will ultimately be able to deal with. On bad ones, I wait until the kids are asleep and cry, thinking about all of the grandmother things that both my mom and my kids are going to miss out on. In lots of ways, they already have. I know that if she was well, I would have received about a week ago a package of carefully and individually wrapped little gifts that she would have pulled together while out and about (Whenever I’d ask her where she got something, she always replied enigmatically, “Oh, I have my places...”). Right about now, she’d be sending Sam something unique and special to celebrate his start of school.

I remember when I got married we put together little copper cookie cutters with cookie recipes to give to guests at the reception. I printed out and tied the recipes onto the cutters myself. I remember my mom saying that when my child went to school for the first time, we’d pull these out and tie them with a pretty bow to give to his teacher. The thought seemed so far away and unreal...having a child, that child being old enough to go to school.

Next time I’m home, I’ll be pulling those cutters out of the bottom drawer in the kitchen and taking them back home to tie with something from my own ribbon collection.

Food and Fish Stories

2009-08-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today I am feeling: Like it should be Friday. And it IS Friday! This week got a little drab when on Monday I had one of those dark nights of the soul when I thought that my children would probably be better off being raised by hyenas than churlish, crabby, yelling me. I put the kids to bed, drooled and snotted on Mark’s shoulder for a while, and woke up feeling better. I decided that I needed to call a truce between Sam and I and work more on going with the three-year-old flow. Obviously if he’s going to stick his finger in a light socket that’s not ok, but pulling over the chair to play with the faucet at the sink? Probably ok, and not worth a fight.

We’re heading down to Portland today to visit my parents, and Sam is bringing 3 of the rather feeble tomatoes our plant on the porch spit out this week to show them. I think the entertainment and attention from other people will be good for him, and hopefully we’ll get to use the pool if the weather is nice.

Exercise: Well, I haven’t gone all Rocky this week like last week. Exercise has mostly involved walks of about 2 miles to and from the village playground, some of them rahter slow when Sam decides he’d like to walk as well. But, it’s exercise, and I’m getting it. We’ve also (I think) made the decision to move Sam to the M/W/F preschool class, so he’d be going 3 time a week instead of 2, and with slightly older kids, which I think he’ll like a lot. There’s a little family-owned gym with a babysitting service right across the street...

Caroline: We exchanged the baby swing in the living room for the exersaucer. She wasn’t really enjoying the swing anymore, and is much more interested in seeing what we’re doing. I had a little pang putting the swing away, as the next time we’ll see it will be when another little one joins us in who knows how long. Or when we move, which God willing will be the first of those two occurances.

Sam: We went to see Ponyo yesterday, and it was so incredible! The film actually kept Sam’s attention for its entire length, which is no small feat. The animation is so gorgeous and so detailed. Like, the two main characters are getting in a boat and a crab creeps up the wall behind them, or an octopus crawls into the house. Who else would have thought to include that? The best part, though was the story. In the American version, the boy would have found Ponyo and mad capers would have ensued while he attempted to hide her from his judgemental and bitter mother. Instead, he instantly explains to her that she is his pet turned into a human, and instead of freaking out she simply acknowledges that there are indeed strange things in the world, and they make dinner. Combine that with a lovely scene that positively depicts breastfeeding, and I was sold.

Projects: Feeding Sam. Seriously, the kid is an eating machine all of a sudden. Yesterday, he had a huge bowl of yogurt and granola, two peanut butter sandwiches, two apples, milk, a bunch of goldfish, a whole piece of pizza, and part of a chocolate shake. Is this a preview of teenhood? I made an effort this week to move him gently towards weaning by telling him that he can nurse when I see him in the morning, at rest time, and at night before bed. So, I’m thinking that he was nursing at other times because he was actually hungry. Go figure.

Milestone: A very nice neighbor brought over a bunch of plums from her tree, which I cooked and pureed for C. I wish I’d had the camera ready...”Heeey, these are pretty goo..*puckerface!* *puckerface!*”

Blurg

2009-08-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

So, it’s been way, way long since I’ve written anything in this big empty part of cyberspace. It’s not that I don’t have things to say...just the thought of stringing together coherent thoughts into a neat, paragraphed package at the end of the day sounds about as much fun as organizing my sock drawer. Blurging, however, sounds great! What is blurging? My husband assures me that it is an actual term used to describe a blog that is really just a set of short thoughts. And here, I will blatantly steal from the Freeway Diva and introduce a brand new format...the mommy blurg.

Today I am feeling: Like it should be Friday, unfortunately. I blame my new church job (more on that later), because after years and years of being conditioned to go to rehearsal at other church jobs on Thursday and then wake up on Friday morning, I am now going on Wednesday evenings.

Exercise: Feeling awesome! I managed two walks this week, and another is planned tomorrow morning. I finally figured out that the iPod is actually not for me...it’s for Sam. Sam listens to kid tunes with the occasional embarassingly loud question or comment, Caroline has her morning nap, and I zone out as I zoom around Green Lake. As soon as I feel like certain flubbery body parts won’t fall off when I do so, I might even try to jog!

Kid-ism of the day: I got to have coffee today with Laural and our friend Monica, and I got such a kick out of Alexa, who was very good at holding out her hand and saying, “NO, Sammy!” whenever Sam encroached on a toy. That girl knows how to stand up for herself.

Sam: was really fun today, when he wasn't being a pill. Pretty normal. We built a fort!

Caroline: now eats rice cereal, sweet potato, and pear, all blended and strained by moi. I forgot how much fun it is to feed a baby, and she really is fun. Sam was never super-enthusiastic about eating solids (although he’s a great eater now), so feeding him was always a little stressful and coercive. Caroline, though, opens her trusting little bird mouth every time, and chuckles when I airplane or swoosh, or whatever other ridiculous thing I feel like doing.

Projects: I’m currently looking for a sewing class to enroll in, a very generous b-day gift from my father-in-law. I have my grandmother Helen’s sewing machine on which she spent countless hours making costumes for us and I really want to know how to use it, especially now that I have a little girl. Cue Mark rolling his eyes at another project I’ve picked up to “save money,” and which actually involves me buying more stuff.

Milestone: So, Caroline started a few solid foods this week, and liked them so much that she is keeping them mostly locked tight in her little intestines. Not to go into total graphic mommy mode, but let’s just say that today I realized that changing her diaper will hereafter be a different and, dare I say, less pleasant olfactory experience. Gone forever is the mild, buttermilky solely breastmilk-induced contents. I never, ever thought that the smell of my child’s stool would qualify as a milestone, but there we are. And I’m sad about it, ok?

Final thought: I’ve gotten much better at typing with one hand,

Sam graduates from gymnastics class

2009-07-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

This class was called "Superbeasts." I think it goes without saying that that is humorous.

Samism

2009-05-29T23:06:00.001-07:00

Sam has this funny habit of jauntily repeating phrases that I've told him regarding how the world works hours, days or sometimes weeks after I've told them to him, seemingly out of the blue. Things like, "Flowers wilt after we CUT them!!" or "It's rude to pick your NOSE!"

His latest one is, "When fish die, we EAT them!!" Which is a little different from my original statement, something about how we eat fish, which happen to be dead. His version sort of makes it sound like dead fish are popping up in the lake, and we gather them up and start munching. Anyway, a few days ago, we were revisiting the topic of his dead pet fish from last year and how he is in heaven now. There was a pause, and then, "When fish die, we EAT them!! Another pause while the wheels turned, and then: "Did Jesus eat our fish?"

Happy Birthday, Sam!

2009-05-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Sam,

Yesterday you turned three. It's hard to believe that three years ago I was holding you in the hospital, wondering what the heck I was going to do now with this lovely little person who needed me so, so much. So, we took you home, and we loved you. And now here you are, this bold, energetic boy who knows his own opinions and isn't afraid to share them...often loudly.

I know that this has been a challenging year for you, and I've felt every single growing pain right along with you. I've seen you go through learning how to share (especially how to share me), how to sing, how to dance ballet, how to use the potty, how to manage disappontment, how to fall asleep in your own bed and how to sleep through the night in your own room. Suddenly, there exists a little space between us during the day that wasn't there last year. It's not bad, it just is. Now, you sometimes go to your room by yourself, or want to lay on the couch and look at a book on your own, or you disappear up the stairs to use the potty and come back down five minutes later with your underwear on inside-out. I watch you nervously, but I try really, really hard to let you have that space. I know how that feels to need that, and I think that for all of your extroversion, you need it just like I do. Rather than an appendage, you often feel like a little satellite now, hovering around me. There has been so much going on in your little world this year, and sometimes you let it spill over and make a mess out of you and everyone around you. We've butted heads this year more than last, without a doubt. But I know that you're trying, and that you're learning. And I know that this phase, just like all the others, won't be forever. Remember, I love you no matter how you feel.

Mostly I've been so, so proud to see you take on your new role - big brother. Just today, Caroline was crying in her little carrier on the floor while I got ready to leave the house, and you went over and did a funny little dance in front of her, making her giggle and chortle. You ate it up, of course. She loves you so much, and I am so grateful that you want to make her laugh, want to hold her hand, and want to have her lay next to you when you go to sleep at night. She is so lucky to have you.

Thank you, sweet Sam, for another wonderful, exciting year. I can't wait to see what adventures the next one brings.

Love,
Mommy

Sam and Caroline

2009-05-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

Caroline has started to gurgle, coo, and make other funny noises, much to Sam's amusement. Today in the car we heard:

Caroline: "Gah-groo? Awugh!"
Sam: "Noooo, Caroline! You can't have licorice! You don't have any teeth!"
Caroline: "Augh!"
Sam, giggling: "Caroline, I'm going to take you to bed to go to sleep with me! You'll be mine!"

Sure enough, he wanted me to keep Caroline upstairs with him while he went to sleep, and the last thing he asked for before falling to sleep was to kiss her one more time.

Lest this post sound like all is sunshine and bliss around the Leen household, I should assure you that these types of episodes mostly make up for the other kind - the screaming, tantruming, pant-wetting, time-out-inducing, unreasonable and intractable kind, which we're having a lot of. I really do try to remember that Sam has gone through so many adjustments in the last few months, most of which he's completed like a pro. He's done so much that I've asked of him, and he never, ever directs any anger toward Caroline. We have yet to hear any sort of "put her back" request. I find that responding to his needs promptly when I can, especially his requests to nurse, does wonders for his disposition (I did need to put a slight cap on that last part, so he gets 10 star stickers to redeem for nursing sessions each day), and that sometimes he just needs some alone time away from both of us to cool off when things get overwhelming. It's so easy to look at him and just see how big he is compared to her. A few nights ago I was putting him to sleep while Mark was downstairs with Caroline, and when I had that rare alone time with him I was suddenly struck by how small he still is. His little back was facing me as I lay next to him, and his little feet were tucked into my knees. His body takes up so little of his twin bed. I suddenly had the urge to hug him to my chest and nestle my nose into his hair, an urge that I indulged while he snoozed away. And I lay there thinking about how fast he's grown, how good he's doing, and how proud I am of him. And I got a little teary, as mommies sometimes do.

And Caroline...oh, Caroline. I am so in love with my little girl. She is just so sweet. I loved Sam at that age because he was curious and demanding and even funny. Caroline is sweet and mild and snuggly. She wants nothing more than to nurse and make eyes at me, and when she's done, to sit up on my lap and just be a part of whatever it is I'm doing - eating, playing with Sam, typing on the computer. And when she's had enough, I rock her in my arms and off she goes. She sleeps for long stretches at night snuggled up against me. She will sleep in the co-sleeper for shorter stretches, but I don't really want her to. She feels like my teddy bear, my security blanket. Her breath is sweet and warm, and her little body feels relaxed and safe. During the day I can tell already that she is completely in love with Sam, and Sam is eating it up. I can see forward years and years, as Sam bends over backward to make her laugh, and she obliges. What a great match of siblings.

Caroline's baptism

2009-04-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

We got our little girl baptized on Sunday! Unfortunately, she fell fast asleep in the cozy towel, and when Father Ryan took her out of it and lifted her in the air...

Time

2009-04-17T15:47:00.001-07:00

Something about the cherry blossoms falling from the trees at the park today made me feel really nostalgic. I was carrying sleeping Caroline in a sling and watching Sam play with a little 18 month old girl named Frances and I found myself wondering, what was Samlike when he was 18 months old? Do I even really remember? I had started this blog around that time, so I have records of everything, but did I really soak it in beyond what I wrote down?

Time is flying by so quickly now. When Sam was a baby, time just crept. I kept waiting for him to do something, to get past a troublesome phase, to learn to walk or play on his own. Everything felt so permanent and never-ending. No wonder it moved so slowly. THis time, though, I have this little boy to look at and I can hardly believe he was ever a tiny baby, he's just so boy now. I see now that they endless night nursing, the struggles to crawl or walk, the sleep deprived stupor...it all ends. Here is this little, spirited, opinionated, verbal boy who sleeps in his own room in his own bed and can lift a spoon full of tomato soup to his mouth without spilling a drop.

So, here I have this new little baby, just as little as he was. And time is flying. Already, she smiles and coos at me, begging for my attention. She sleeps next to me and I love it, because I know that she won't be there forever and that I'll miss her terribly when eventually she's asleep in her own room. I look down at her smiling up at me with my nipple in her mouth while we're nursing, and I realize that we're already about a third of the way through the time when food from my body will be the only nutrition she needs.

I wonder with some guilt if I just let that part of Sam's life slip by because I was so wrapped up in the timeline in my head. And then, I forgive myself for being a tired, wrinkled, worn-out first time mom and remind myself to enjoy what I have right here, right now. Because once it's gone, it's just a memory.

2009-03-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

Sam and I strung these beads that we madeon a string, and he insisted on wearing them to the park, where he ran around yelling "dinner for supper!" and shouting into the toy telephone, "Hellooooo! Is anyone there? Aiuta me! Aiuta me!" We're on a roll, socially speaking.

The Expert

2009-03-24T22:21:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling quite bossed around lately. I don't mean the typical two-year-old traits, although we have those going on, too. Last week, I told Sam we were going to Fred Meyer's, and, with practically an eye-roll, he said, "Not Fred Meyer's, mom, Fred Meyer." I got the same treatment a few days ago when I told him to "touch gentle" when handling Caroline: "Not, gent-le, gent-ly!" Yes, I am aware of how freaky it is that my two year old apparently knows about the proper use of an adverb. I also get parenting advice on a regular basis. She cries in her swing, and Sam says authoritatively, "I think she needs to nurse" or "she has a wet diaper." And he's often right. I think I'm just going to go on vacation and leave him in charge.

2009-03-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

Modern Art

2009-03-06T11:02:00.000-08:00

Artist: Samuel James Leen
Title: Sozzy (I asked)
Medium: Art clay, hotwheels and yarn needle

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Lord, I will never, ever, ever complain about my children again. Ok, I probably will, but not for a while at least. I just got home yesterday from 3 days with Caroline in isolation at Seattle Children's Hospital. I didn't expect quite such a visceral illustration of Ash Wednesday to intrude on my life, but that's the way it works sometimes, isn't it? The ashes on the foreheads of some of the parents I saw walking around the hallways seemed a little redundant - like they really needed a reminder of how fragile life is. One man looked at me in the elevator and shook his head with a wry smile: "This place. You're glad it's here, but..." "You'd rather be somewhere else?" I finished, and he nodded tiredly. My own experience seems pretty paltry compared to theirs, but I have definitely had enough of seeing people poke needles and tubes into my little girl. On the night we arrived in the ER with breathing problems and a fever, she had to have a blood draw, a catheter to collect a urine sample, and (the one I really had to sit down for) a spinal tap that took three tries to get done. In order to open up the spaces between her vertebrae, they had to fold her practically in half and hold her there until they got the right spot. When they handed her to me afterward, she looked at me with vacant, cloudy eyes that showed that she had mentally gone somewhere far, far away to deal with everything that had happened to her. I don't think I've ever had a sadder moment in my life.

The diagnosis of RSV meant that we were in a room by ourselves for 3 days. My meals were brought to me, and I spent the days eating, watching TV, sleeping, and rocking her in the chair they found for me. I left the room when Mark and Sam came to visit so I could take Sam to the cafeteria or gift shop to have some time with him. When I wasn't holding Caroline, she spent much of her time in a metal crib, swaddled in two blankets with her little boarded IV arm sticking out at an angle and her oxygen prongs taped to her little face. She went away from me for a day or so, sleeping for almost 24 straight hours while her body fought off the virus, waking up just to eat every few hours (which she thankfully was still doing well), and getting diaper changes. On the second night, the antibiodics they gave her upset her stomach, and she spent most of the night writhing around and fussing, while I rocked her in the chair and nodded off holding her. Finally, on Thursday afternoon she turned the corner, breathing just room air and starting to come back to us. On Friday, she was fully alert and given the ok to go home.

We've been practically giddy having her back and having our family reunited. This was obviously hard on Mark and Sam, too. Mark told me on Thursday that Sam had pointed at a bus on the road and told him that that bus was sad because his mommy was far away. We made up for some lost time this morning by piling on the bed together as a family, reading a book and admiring Caroline. The real reward for me, though, was a moment that we two had by ourselves earlier that morning. She had slept peacefully in her cosleeper for most of the night, but by 6:00 she was fussy and not settling with my usual pats and rubs. So I picked her up and laid her little head on my arm and snuggled down into the bed with her, something I hadn't been able to do for 4 days. She rewarded me with me most gorgeous, peaceful smile before drifting back to sleep. We're all so grateful to have her back.

Adjustments

2009-02-24T17:47:00.000-08:00

I'm trying really, really hard to not freak out about the fact that Mark goes back to work on Monday. He's been working from home a few hours and had a few meetings over the last few days, and I'm getting a taste of what it's like to stay at home with two kids. Oh, and did I mention that they're both sick, along with Mark? In true motherhood style, I am the only one that did not get the Horrible Disgusting Cold. Someone has to take care of everyone, after all. So, Caroline is snorting and woofing her way through nursing sessions every few hours, Sam is snotting all over his own face and occasionally wiping it on me, and I am upstairs in Sam's bedroom with both of them, trying to not think about jumping out the window and running down the street.

Ok, it's not that bad all the time. But I got a taste of what venturing out with two kids is like on Saturday while Mark was at a meeting. The weather was nice, so I loaded Caroline in the sling and decided we'd take a walk to Discovery Park. One tantrum later, Sam was happily riding his tricycle down the sidewalk. All was going well - a visit to the playground, running into some friends - when Caroline got hungry. Instead of trying to dash for home, I decided to go to the visitor's center to feed her in the playrooom while Sam entertained himself. Unfortunately, entertaining himself meant dumping sand on the floor, taking another little girl's toy, and eventually whacking her. I, with Caroline in the sling and still nursing, hauled him out into the hallway for his timeout, after which he refused to apologize to the little girl, in spite of my threat that we would be leaving on the spot if he didn't. Time to make good on the threat. So, I hauled him under one arm to the entrance of the visitor's center where a Grand Mal tantrum was had, and I think there was something said about leaving the tricycle here for someone else to have before it was gotten upon and ridden home, crying and trying to turn around the whole way, while I tried to steer it forward with Caroline fussing and crying in the sling. Not really fun, all told.

Along with that, we've had countless tantrums, refusal to use the potty, and (Mark's personal favorite), a dump in the pants. I'm trying really hard to be patient, knowing that he has a lot going on and needs to adjust to not being the baby anymore, but it's taking just about all I have to not list him on E-Bay right now.

Week one

2009-02-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

What a week! You know what's funny? The hardest part about all of this is not the lack of sleep (which has not really been that bad this time around), the endless diaper changes, the tantric baby positions designed to eliminate gas, or the nursing and more nursing. The part that has been the most emotionally and physically demanding is helping Sam adjust to his big brotherhood. To be clear, he has mostly been great. Any angst he feels is never directed at the baby. In fact, it's sort of like he's completely clueless that she is the source of what he's feeling. He is so loving with her, I have to keep him from diving in the basket or piling toys all over her. But, I see his stress in other ways. He has been off his feed and occasionally doesn't poop or pee all day, and (my favorite), he seems to have this little voice in his head that says things like, "Don't stab mommy in the foot with that fork. What? Stab mommy in the foot with that fork? What a good idea!" Basically, he seems subconsciously mad at me. I'm a big girl - I can take it - but I feel so bad for him. I have completely turned his world upside down, and he seems completely unaware of the cause beyond that life just doesn't feel right right now and he keeps stabbing me in the foot with forks and getting in trouble for it.

Other than that, I want a hut. I have told Mark that in some cultures women sit in a hut all day and are waited on hand and foot for a month while they recover from childbirth. He's not buying it, and is insisting that I go on these annoying walks every day. Fresh air, blegh. He's making me end this entry so that I can go to the hardware store with him with the promise that I can sit in the car. I mean, I did get to sit at home all day with Caroline while he and Sam went on some odyssey for a dehumidifier, so I suppose I should get out of the house. I lack the energy to be clever about this right now.

She's here!

2009-02-09T19:45:00.001-08:00

How things change in just a few days. As I type this, Caroline Francesca is sleeping peacefully in her daddy's arms while Sam snoozes upstairs. I'm sitting here thinking that this is what women mean when they talk about how deliriously happy they are after having a baby. I always assumed they were just on more pain meds than me. Around this time in Sam's life, we were frantically trying to get him to nurse through jaundice while having him on a light bed at home, and I was having frequent crying jags and feelings of total helplessness. This was hardly Sam's fault - The birth had been long and difficult after an induction, and I was dealing with the aftermath of a birth experience that was in many ways the opposite of what I had wanted.

By comparison, Caroline's birth was picture-perfect. We suspected that I was in labor on Thursday night around 6 when I started having regular (but manageable) contractions, and made the call to send Sam to Erik and Laural's house for an overnight visit. We drove to the village and strolled around, popping in Starbucks and Bartells to wander around, me periodically leaning on Mark to breathe through a contraction. We were disappointed when things started to slow down, and we headed home where I planted myself on the bed to watch Grey's Anatomy. As if on cue, at 10 I started shaking, threw up once, and set in to strong contractions. I labored at home for two hours, we headed to the hospital around 12, I got in the tub at 1:15 to ride out about 20 minutes of serious transition contractions and my water finally broke, I felt the urge to push and got back into my room, pushed for 10 minutes, and out she came! It was obviously serious work, but the entire experience was delightfully fast and manageable. As I was getting in position to push, I looked at Mark and the midwife and remember saying, "I can't believe I get to push already!" There's even a picture of me with a big grin on my face between pushing contractions. And when she was finally on my chest, I was overwhelmed with joy.

And since then, she has been a delightful, calm, sweet baby. When she cries, it's this unobtrusive, hey-could-you-help-me-out sound, low and almost musical. She drifts off to sleep easily, and when she is unhappy it's been easy so far to figure out what she wants and how to fix it. Last night, she even let us sleep 4 hours in a row. I know that all of this isn't just her - I know much more now about how to handle a newborn and have much more realistic expectations. But I am overwhelmed with gratitude for everything that has happened over the last few days, for everything that she is, and for everything that our family has come to be through all of this.

Now, Sam...the final piece of this puzzle that is our new family. I will never forget the look on his face when Mark carried him into the hospital room to meet Caroline. He was completely taken with her, wanted to hold her right away, and got mad when Mark took away "his baby." On the way home, Sam and I were waiting for Mark to bring the car around when I looked over and caught Sam gazing at her in the car seat with a look of naked adoration, then he reached out and gently pulled the blanket up to her chin. I thought my heart was going to explode.

She's about to wake up, so I need to wrap this up but will continue later with some more about Sam and Caroline. I'll end by saying that although I'm tired, and although I know that we'll all have our ups and downs in the coming weeks, I never thought I would feel so happy and complete as when I look at all of us together, our new little family.

The next step

2009-02-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that I'm a mere 2 days away from my due date. Not that that means anything, other than that I could have the baby in a few hours, or in a few weeks.

As we're on the cusp of adding a new person to our family, I find that I'm getting nostalgic about our sweet little threesome we've had for almost 3 years. A few months ago, I couldn't wait to drop off Sam at preschool so I could go to yoga, write, or grab a cup of coffee by myself. Today, I had plans to go to yoga, but Sam and I were having such a nice time this morning that I decided to forego it and stay at home and play with him. After all, our time is limited.

I always pictured having more than one child, and I still am on board with that plan. But, I also understand how a mom can fall so in love with her one child that it's hard to imagine sharing that love with anyone else on the planet. Our little weekday twosome time of going to the park, the zoo, for walks is all coming to an end. I look at him, though, and I think about the tremendous gift that he's going to be getting in return for this sacrifice. It's a gift he may not always want - learning to be a sibling is going to be tough. But siblinghood is a school for learning life skills he'd never otherwise have an opportunity to learn. He's going to have to share space, share time, be tender, not always get what he wants or get it himself, and how to fight well. And when he fails, he'll know that even though he or his sister may not say it, they love each other. They're stuck with each other. He has no idea that this is coming his way.

Or, maybe he does. He's also been super snuggly lately. Not clingy necessarily, although that's happened to, but huggy and kissy. This is a child who returns hugs but rarely initiates them. He's just always been that way - too busy. Not baby who nestled into me, he'd rather keep his head up and see what was going on around him. Now, it's not unusual for him to walk up to me and wrap his arms around me, head resting on my shoulder. This morning when I was helping him get on the potty he did exactly that, and we stayed there, hugging on the bathroom floor, for almost a minute. Then, in his little stage whisper, he said, "I don't want to let go of you, Mommy." I don't either, Sam.

Object lesson

2009-01-23T16:40:00.000-08:00

There are those moments in every parent's life when it dawns on you that you would do anything, ANYTHING, for your child. You already knew that intellectually, of course. You tell yourself that you would stay up all night, step in front of a bus, beat someone up. But then it actually happens, and you're like, "Wow. I did...that."

Picture Sam and me on a foggy Friday at lunchtime. It doesn't particularly matter how we got there, but there we were - the public restroom at a local restaurant. Sam had decided he needed to poop (unusual for him in an unfamiliar place), and had subsequently requested, as usual, that I remove all of his clothes. So, he's naked. And the poop is half in, half out, and not going anywhere. And he's looking at me and crying. Not whining crying, but honest-to-goodness I'm-in-pain-mama, big, fat tears. My poor, poor baby. So without hesitation I...assisted the delivery. And then washed my hands like they had the devil himself on them.

The funny thing is that I was having lunch there with a friend, and she had just been telling me about doubts she had about whether she'd be a good parent or not. I told her that when you have your own kids, it constantly surprises you what you're willing to do and the reserves of patience, humility and creativity that you discover within yourself. Smart, self-satisfied me. Little did I know that I'd be getting a very yucky object lesson in this within the next 10 minutes.

But it got me thinking about all the ways that motherhood has changed me. It's not just what you do for your kids, it's how you feel while doing those things. I am definitely not a spit person - I gag at the sight of other peoples, and sometimes my own - yet wiping up baby drool is a non-issue. I love my sleep, and for two years I got up at least every 3-4 hours to tend to Sam, and I freely signed up to do it again with another one. I heard someone say once that getting through a tough developmental milestone with your child is a great bonding experience. But the every day stuff - that's where the refining fire truly is. Singing that song one more time even though it makes you crazy, cutting the peels off the apples even though the peeler slips and cuts your finger, doing for someone else at your own expense and inconvenience, all of that makes us better people and shows us the deep rewards of doing for others through the infinite love that our kids give back to us. And if we lucky, we bring that to our relationship with our spouse, our parents, our friends, and our community. Parenthood is indeed the best medicine.

A job for everyone...

2009-01-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

Sam and I have been talking a lot recently about jobs - how everyone has one, and how there are all kinds of jobs that involve fixing things, making things, and taking care of things. So, last night we were in the bath and he noticed that his little duck sponge was beginning to come apart where it was glued together. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when he sighed with resignation and said: "Oh, well. Better call the Sponge Man."

R.I.P. Naps

2008-12-29T20:04:00.000-08:00

So the big news around here is that as of last week Sam has officially and seemingly permanently given up naps. A year ago, in a stupified zombie-like state, that possibility seremed unthinkable. I assumed that when it eventually happened, there would be great wailing and rending of garments in the Leen household. Lo and behold, though, at least so far, I not only don't miss them but am actually preferring the no-nap day.

Mostly the reason is that sleep time in general had become a huge power struggle between me and Sam, involving cajoling, bribing, yelling, and sometimes actually holding him in place in bed before he eventually succumbed to sleep. This delightful sequence of events took up to an hour a day. Twice. I was usually so wired after putting him down for a nap that it was almost impossible for me to relax, let alone sleep. And bedtime...oh, boy. He usually would fight and fight until 9:30, and then Mark and I would be so tired we'd just drop off to sleep ourselves.

Now, though, not only has bedtime become almost an enjoyable time of day, I find that when I'm not spending those two-plus hours a day locked in battle with Sam I actually enjoy spending time with him more, and he with me as well. In addition, when the 5:00 crazies roll around for both of us, I can look at the clock and think about how I can get him in the bath in about 2 more hours, followed by almost guaranteed sleep and the rest of the evening to myself by about 8:00. Delightful, restful, and rejuvenating. If I really, really need to nap, Sam has gotten really good at entertaining himself in his room, and I'll just lay down on his bed for a quick 20 minute doze at some point that perks me right up. I also no longer have to worry about how I'm going to get him down for a nap with a new baby to take care of.

Speaking of...I am definitly feeling ready to give birth. Not that I will probably any time soon (got about 5 more weeks until my due date), I'm just getting to that point where I'm ready to just move on, already. She's kicking a lot, although not as hard or as often as her brother did, and her most common annoyance seems to be if I'm particularly active she'll sort of float up and stick a body part into my rib - sort of a "Hey, mom, I'm still here...Could you slow it down for a sec?"

In general, this pregnancy has been easier and less all-consuming than Sam's. Of course, how could it not be? I was laughing about this with a few other moms at the community center play time today, right after I did a full-on dive into the bouncy house to pull Sam out in time for him to not run over another child. We all talked about how our second pregnancies hadn't provided the luxury of sitting on the couch eating, and how we'd all been chasing after toddlers or preschoolers to stay in shape. Every single one commented on how she had gained less weight and been in better shape, something I can relate to.

I'm gathering that this baby's babyhood will also be less all-consuming. Not because she'll be different than any other baby, but because it simply can't consume me. I have no doubt that I'll love her just as much as Sam, but she'll be beginning life as an appendage in a sling as I go about my life with him, not the sole and obsessive single focal point that Sam was. Also, one of the biggest shocks of a first child is simply the idea that your life, and your husband's life, is no longer your own. Everyone tells you that, but I don't think there's any way to really understand that without living it, and that's a hard adjustment. But, it's an adjustment that we've already made and have lived with for two-and-a-half years. I'd also like to think I know a little more about what I'm doing this time than last. We'll see....

Snow Day(s)

2008-12-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

We're getting pretty sick of snow here. Seriously, what did the pioneer women do? Not only did they have to be housebound about 10 times longer in smaller quarters, they also had to keep their toddlers from jumping into fires, didn't have Teletubbies and couldn't just take their SUV to the Thriftway when they ran about of food. Hats off to you, ladies.

However, we got some pretty darn great pictures of Sam in the snow. Here they are...

Big Boy Bed

2008-12-23T21:51:00.001-08:00

These are actually from a few weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to posting them. He's doing great in his new bed!

Mr. Social

2008-12-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

I think that one of the greatest pleasures I've gotten from motherhood so far is watching Sam start to view other children as friends rather than indistinct blobs that take his toys. Since our little preschool ordeal a few months ago, so much has changed. We went to the playground a few weeks ago and were walking down the hill and met up with a father/daughter pair heading there as well. Sam ran up to her with a giggle, and when she smiled back, he took her little hand in his and walked with her to the playground saying, "I'll show you the sandbox." The dad and I looked at each other with some serious raised eyebrows. "You'll have to look out for that one," he said. "Oh, no," I replied with a grin, "YOU'LL have to look out for him."

It's become glaringly apparent that he likes girls. A lot. And preferably a little older. Way to go, Sam. One four-year-old in the cry room at church got the Sam treatment a few weeks ago when he took her hand and led her to his train, then they rolled around together under one of the pews, giggling crazily.

All he wants these days is to interact with kids and make friends. Sometimes, it's heartbreakingly poignant to observe, as I think about all of the social gamits he'll be running in the next few years. At REI a few days ago, he found a group of older kids huddled together in a little fort, and started playing peekaboo with them. "Go away, baby!" they yelled at him. Sam just laughed at their enthusiasm for insulting him, and continued to play. One day, though, he'll hear what they're saying and understand it. And then, my precious, outgoing little boy may have some questions.

Jokes

2008-12-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

Boy, do I have a lot of catching up to do! Since it's the night before Christmas eve and there's lots of packing a wrapping to do, this will have to suffice.

Mark was teaching Sma to do knock-knock jokes tonight, which was hilarious. He even made up his own:

Sam: "Knock-knock!"
Mark: "Who's there?"
Sam: "Banana!"
Mark: "Banana who?"
Sam: "Banana sock!" (Falls down in helpless laughter)

Nice Monster

2008-11-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

First, an update: Sam has been doing MUCH better in the behavior category. His preschool teachers were great about incorporating my discoveries and ways of dealing with him, and he had a very successful day on Wednesday. We went to McDonalds for lunch to celebrate.

In other news...we now have an imaginary friend. Sam has talked about nice and mean monsters for a few months now, but just recently Nice Monster made an appearance. Yesterday, I was not allowed to help Sam with the potty because Nice Monster was helping him. We have to leave the gate open upstairs for a few seconds when we go up so that Nice Monster can come up, too. And at bedtime, he decided he wanted Nice Monster to put him to sleep. My excitement may have tipped him off though...he quickly changed his mind and decided that Mommy AND Nice Monster should put him to sleep.

I'm not particularly worried about this, and don't think I should be. It's actually pretty cute. When Nice Monster starts to tell him to jump off the roof, he'll be asked to leave. But for now, I think he's here to help Sam through a lot of adjustments he's had lately - new room, new sibling on the horizon...Nice Monster is welcome as long as he pulls his weight.

When preschoolers attack

2008-11-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

Preschool drama. I picked Sam up from school, where he goes for about 2 hours on Wednesdays, and the teacher pulled me aside.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Uh oh. I know that teacher voice.
"Has Sam had anything, uh, BIG happen in his life lately?"

I told the teacher about his new room, and she nodded reassuringly. He apparently was rather aggressive toward the other kids that morning - pushing, hitting, grabbing toys, etc. They'd pull him aside and talk to him about using words, etc and I was nodding along, but the whole time I was thinking, "Oh my gosh. He's going to be THAT KID." I think the very kind teacher saw that look in my eyes, and she reassured me that her oldest son went through a tough phase like that, and now he's a delightful adult who runs his own business. Great, so he's not a serial killer. Oh, and Sam managed to get himself bitten by a little girl, complete with little pink tooth marks in his arm. The teachers were extremely apologetic and I'd feel sorry for him, but I think he had it coming.

On the way to the car, I chatted with Sam.

"Sam, I heard that the teachers needed to talk to you today about sharing."

He nods and looks at his hands, not looking at my face. "Mmm-hmm."

"If you want a toy, what can you say?"

He says in a canned voice, "Please, can I have a turn with that when you're done?"

Ok, that's a start.

I think this was a wake-up call for me about helping Sam develop these skills. Beyond preschool, he doesn't spend a lot of time consistently around other kids, and when he's at preschool they've got about one teacher for every 6 kids or so, and it's not fair for me to expect them to know all of his triggers, see trouble brewing, and head it off, let alone help him with every single interaction - that's my job. It's one of the reasons I chose to stay home, so I can do all of these things, not just the fun stuff.

So, today we went to an open play time at a local community center. Before we went in, we had a little talk:

"Sam, there are going to be other kids in there, and toys that you'll share with them. What are you going to do if you'd like to play with a toy?"

"Please, can I have a turn with that when you're done?" Sounding a little less canned.

"Good, honey. And you know I'll be there to help you if you need it, ok?"

"Mmm-hmm."

So, we go in and we have the place to ourselves for about 15 minutes, and then the flood gates opened. About 15 kids in the preschool came pouring in, taking over all of the riding toys and the bouncy house. I braced myself. Sam immediately went after the little girl on the motorcycle he'd most recently been playing with, screaming and running after her. Here we go. I scooped him up and walked him to the corner.

"Sam, she's taking a turn with that right now. I'll let you down when you can use words instead of scream."

He nods, and I let him down. He runs up to the girl again, and to my surprise says, "Can I please have a ride with you?"

She thinks about it and sizes him up, then nods. He delightedly hops on the back of the motorcycle and she scoots him about the gym, Sam giggling the whole time.

It brought me a lot of insight about why he behaves the way he does. I really, honestly think that he loves other kids, and wants to play with them more than he wants their toys. But, he's just so intense about it. With one little girl, he ran up and started talking in her face, then said he wanted her to take her finger out of her mouth and take her glove off so he could hold her hand, which he tried to accomplish by yanking her hand out of her mouth and trying to pull off her glove. She looked slightly shell-shocked. I can just imagine that at preschool he had some sort of interaction like this, and instead of me being there to sort of coach him through it, the kid rebuffed him or got mad, and it escalated into other ways to get the attention of the kid, then his frustration set him off on other negative attention-getting behaviors of the rest of the day. As a contrast, I helped him through that first interaction with that motorcycle girl, and things went more or less pretty well for the rest of the time we were there.

So, I have a new plan. If he throws something, grabs something, hits someone, or does any sort of other negative behavior, even if it's coming from an excited intense mood rather than a mad one, I calmly pick him up and take him away from the situation, where we have a little chat about what went wrong and how to do it differently. I hope at the very least he'll get the idea that if he does any of those things he gets a time-out, but I also hope that he starts to absorb how to do it better and that it sets him on that better path.

On the way home, I had another insight.

"Sam, I am so proud of the way you played with other kids today. You did a great job using your words and sharing toys."

He's gazing out the window. "I made that boy scream."

He's thinking about the one other time we had trouble, when he excitedly hit a boy who was playing in a tunnel, and I removed him to have a talk about it. Amazing - out of all the good interactions he had, he remembers the one that didn't go well. Is he going to be like this? "Good job, honey, you got mostly A's!" "But I got one B, mom." Is he going to take not pleasing people, especially those he's close to, really hard? I'll have to be sure that he knows when he's done well, and that it matters to me just as much if not more than when things go the other way.

Own room!

2008-10-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

Big news! After painting, moving and hauling (thank you, Erik and Laural!), Sam now has his own room upstairs. Mark and I have moved our bed downstairs to the basement. And guess what? Sam loves it! We talked to him about how if he wanted either of us during the night he could just call out and we'd hear him over the monitor and come right up. On the first night he slept until 5 before I got the call: a very calm "Mommy, can you come up?" Today, it was 6:30! It's a far cry from his 7:30/8ish wake-up when he could crawl into bed with us, but I can deal with it for the trade-off, and he's been taking a longer nap during the day to make up for it, which doesn't have me complaining. Sam loves his set-up so much that before his bath last night he did a little Sound-of-Music-style twirl in the middle of the room, threw himself on the bed and exclaimed, "I LOVE my own room!"

Here's the funny part, though: Sam may have adjusted just fine, but I have yet to have a night where I don't wake up around 3 or 4 and lay there in the dark listening to the little sleeping sounds over the monitor. I'm trying really hard to wait until he asks for me before I wander upstairs so that I'm encouraging his independence, but it's hard. It's funny how I was so worried about how Sam would adjust to this change, and it ends up that I'm the one having trouble with it!

Logistically speaking, I'm finding that things are much less crazy than I thought they would be. Mark is gradually moving his things downstairs and is showering and getting ready down there, and when Sam wakes up I head upstairs to his room (where my clothes are still in the closet and my toiletries are in the bathroom) and get ready for the day up there, pretty much just like I did before we moved the bed. Laundry and garbage just gets hauled up from the basement and added to the pile on laundry and garbage days, and I really don't go down there again during the day. So, apart from our sleeping time and places, not much about our routine has changed. We'll see how it shakes out with a new baby in the mix, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Anniversary

2008-10-28T11:48:00.000-07:00

"Hey, Sam, do you know that daddy and I have our anniversary on Thursday?"
"What's that?"
"It's when daddy and I got married."
Pause for thought.
"I"m married, too, you know."
"Oh, really? Who are you married to?"
"Mommy!"
"Oh, you're married to mommy?"
"Yeah! When's our anniversary?"
"I don't know. When do you think it is?"
"Monday!"

Pregnancy

2008-10-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should add something about my pregnancy, since I haven't written much about it. I'm starting to learn that that's the way it goes with second pregnancies. At this rate, if we have a third I'll probably just be completely surprised when he or she pops out. I was pregnant? I guess I was too busy to notice...

Anyway, I feel great. Like, GREAT. Better than I did with Sam, and that was pretty great. I told someone yesterday that I feel like there's energy shooting out of my fingertips. In the last week, I single-handedly painted a wall (removing and then replacing all of the furniture and hangings on said wall) and moved all of the books and shelves up from the basement. The living room looks fabulous, and it's actually a place I enjoy hanging out in now. But instead of being tired after all of this work, I feel like I'm ready for more. We go to the park and I chase Sam around and do underdogs over and over again, laughing and running. Everyone looks at me like a crazy pregnant lady for not just sitting on a bench, but I don't care. I feel great! I suppose I should enjoy it now, because I'm sure there will come a point, either before or after the baby is born, when all of this energy is a distant memory. But for now, I'm just enjoying feeling like a superhero.

Mr. Outspoken.

2008-10-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

No one has ever accused Sam of being shy. If this little girl I'm having has any sort of stranger anxiety, it will be an entirely new experience for me.

That being said, it should not be a surprise that Sam is a rather outspoken toddler, especially now that he's exerting his own independence and increasing his language at a sometimes alarming rate. We were out to dinner a few nights ago and I asked Sam if he'd like some orange juice, and he said yes. When the waitress came by, Mark placed his order for a drink, then I mine, and then before I could add Sam's order he leaned forward and got the attention of the waitress and said very seriously, "And I would like some orange juice, please." At the park today, I was chatting with another pregnant lady and asked her if she knew what she was having. When she said it was a boy, Sam piped up from the see-saw with "We're having a little girl!" In the Starbucks drive-thru, Sam is not about to let me have the whole conversation with the barista to myself. Usually after I order my drink, he bellows from the back seat, "AND SOME BANANA BREAD! AND SOME WATER WITH A STRAW!" Luckily, they think it's cute.

I'm simultaneuosly encouraged and wary about this new development. First of all, it's great that Sam feels like he has something to add to a conversation, that his thoughts are valid and valued, and that adults will listen to him. Good job, me. On the other hand, I realize now that I will have to be extremely careful about what I say around him. We're only one step away from "My mommy said your hair looks terrible today." I'm also thinking about how to address the stranger idea. I'm around him all the time now when we're out, but at some point we're going to have to have a conversation about talking to strangers, because not all of them are nice. How do I not scare him?

The other development along these lines is the questions. Ah, the endless questions. Do bees like trucks? Do engines have wheels? Why is that car red? And then the really esoteric ones: What makes traffic? Who made that tree? Why are there clouds? At the park today, Sam asked why the little hand-cranked ride-on platform was rocking, and I told him it was because it was a boat and boats rocked. The mother of an 18 month old standing next to us said, "Wow! I wouldn't have thought of that!" Listen, I wanted to say, when you get asked about 10 impossible to answer questions a day, you get to thinking on your feet pretty quickly...

I have to say, I love these two things about Sam. The conversation, and the questions. He is always very interesting company, and I can see him growing into a chatty, outgoing kid and a sparkling adult. But my brain hurts.

The secret of two

2008-10-16T17:29:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine has a friend with 4 kids. When a friend of hers (I know, this is confusing) was freaking out and asked her what she should do, this mom's advice was simple: "Have more."

It's counterintuitive, but I got a taste of it this afternoon when Sam and I watched Alexa for a few hours. I was looking forward to seeing her, but I have to admit - I had some trepidation about managing two. However, I need the practice, obviously. So, imagine my delight when I glanced at the clock while sitting on the floor with them and TWO HOURS had gone by without me noticing it. Yes, I occasionally had to keep them from kicking each other in the head, stealing each other's food, or stepping on each other's faces (ok, Sam tried most of those things, not Alexa). BUT...the amount of energy focused on me and me alone was much less than when there was just the two of us. Suddenly, there was another living person in the room for them to turn to instead of me. I wasn't solely in charge of entertainment, education, and witty banter. Instead, Sam chuckled at just about everything that came out of Alexa's mouth, including her cheddar bunnies, and Alexa followed Sam around trying to do whatever he was doing. I know, I know. I had her for three hours, she's only a year younger than him, I haven't had her around the house from birth, yadda, yadda, yadda. The important part was that it gave me hope. I CAN mother two children and only lose my mind occasionally.

In the moment

2008-10-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

I was reminded recently of how little I am in the moment when it comes to my parenting, or in any aspect of my life right now, really. I'm reading this great book, Eat Pray Love, which has pretty much nothing to do with parenting (and this is a first in many months), and which is partially about this woman's months in an ashram in India studying meditation. She calls her mind a "monkey, leaping from tree to tree and stopping occasionally to scratch, spit and howl." Ok, that could also be a good description of a toddler. Either way, I've realize how often during my day I am either focusing on something that has already happened, or thinking about something in the future that might or might not ever happen. When will Sam take his nap? What will I do while he's taking it? Did he eat enough breakfast? Why hasn't he gone potty yet, and when is that going to happen? What if he has an accident? Will it be on the rug or the hardwood? Uh oh, I'm out of bleach wipes. Why didn't I remember to get those? Even while I'm typing this, I'm worrying about when Sam will wake up and exactly how much time I have until then, and if this is the best use of my time.

This is especially true now that I am a little over 3 months from having another baby. We've made big plans over the next few weekends to move our bed down to the basement, giving Sam his own room. He's actually very excited about it, and told me that the "big bed is going downstairs so that mommy can nurse daddy" (because you know I have to be nursing someone). All of this planning has resulted in lists about what furniture will go where and what walls will be painted, worries about how to help Sam adjust and who exactly will be sleeping where when, and second thoughts centering around what will happen if it all goes horribly wrong. But today, I remembered to live in the moment for an instant when Sam crawled into bed with us at 3 this morning. Our sweet time of waking up to his snoring little body between us is coming to an end. There was a time I thought it never would, when I earnestly wished for just this sort of move. But now that it's coming nearer, I'm ambivalent. I know that he's ready because he's telling us he is, and I know that to keep him a baby would not make me a good mom. But this mix of holding on to the past, looking into the future, and savoring the present is too much for me sometimes.

Squirrels

2008-10-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Sam and I went to the park this morning, and the ground there is currently littered with acorns. Squirrels scampered around snapping them up, which fascinated Sam. We spent a lot of time talking about them, and breaking a few nuts open to see what's inside. Toward the end of the trip, he had an acorn in his hand when he saw a squirrel run across the barkdust.

"Squirrel, Squirrel! I've got an acorn for you!" he yelled, chasing after the terrified squirrel with the acorn in his extended hand. Boy, some squirrels just can't accept help, can they?

Watching the debate with Daddy

2008-10-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

Funny story: Pops, Sam and I were walking through a Borders last weekend and Sam was in the middle holding both of our hands as we walked by a display of political books. There were books on Obama, McCain, and one on Palin, and several adults browsing them. As we walked by, my two year old pointed offhandedly at one of the books and said, "Look, Sarah Palin." Every adult's head at that table snapped up to look with shock at my son. Bob and I just laughed. What can I say...Mark and I are raising a political animal.

A walk in the rain

2008-10-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Touche, Playland.

2008-10-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, Fred Meyer, you win.

When I was pregnant with Sam and when he was a tiny baby, I was jealous (yes, JEALOUS) of all of those lucky moms that got to shop with a preschooler. How fun! Looking at colors together! Pointing out numbers! Admiring the produce! How could anyone leave their precious child in the lonely corner that is the Playland? They must be the lazy parents, the parents that didn't care about their child's social development. I wasn't going to be like that. I would actually enjoy shopping with my child, darn it!

Fast forward two-plus years, and you would not find me doing many of the above things. Instead, you would find me plying Sam with a variety of snacks, distractions, and finally angry pronouncements to keep him from jumping out of the cart and killing himself (because he simply won't sit in the small basket with the buckle anymore), all while I was trying to stretch our grocery budget, weigh produce and not forget the milk. I began to dread shopping so much that I actually sent Mark in the evening with a list once. After he came home with the most disgusting (and not surprisingly cheapest) deli meat I've ever tasted, I thought there'd have to be a better way.

Enter Playland. Sam ran in and I filled out the forms and kissed him goodbye, and spent an entire hour by myself smelling produce, comparison shopping and generally doing all of the things that are impossible to do with him there. Granted, I gnashed my teeth the entire time enough to give myself a headache and obsessively checked on him, and when my name was called over the speaker I ran the fastest sprint with groceries ever recorded (he just had to go potty and I had to take him), but all in all, it really beat the alternative.

I guess I have to accept that there are times in his life that it will be ok for me to take some help from Playland and be happy relaxed mommy rather than rush through an hour of shopping with him and turn into crabby, burned out, much poorer mommy. And once I got over the stress of wondering if the other kids would be friendly, if there was enough supervision for a two-year-old, and if he'd come down with the Hanta virus, it was really kind of nice.

Evergreen State Fair

2008-09-30T16:49:00.000-07:00

Pictures

2008-09-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

I finally downloaded the 400+ pictures I've had languishing on my camera, so the next few posts will be updates...

Playing doctor

2008-09-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

Today I was washing the sheets on the bed and had the comforter and naked pillows in a pile on the floor. Sam, in his underwear, worked his way down under the comforter and rested his head on a pillow,smiling at me.

"Mommy's the doctor!" he said.
"Oh, are you in the hospital?"
"Yeah!"
"Are you sick?"
"Yeah!"
"Where are you sick?"
"My tummy hurts."
"Ok, let me examine you."
I pull out my pretend thermometer.
"Now, first I'm going to take your temperature. Open your mouth."
He opens wide.
"Now close it on the thermometer, aaaand...beep! It's done. Let's see....you don't have a temperature...Let me look in your ears."
Sam turns his head.
"And say aaaahhh..."
"Aaaaahh!"
"Yup, I think your tummy is hurting you. Here's some medicine to help it feel better."
He eats the pretend medicine.
"Now let's tuck you in and have you rest."
"My bed has wheels!"
This takes me a minute.
"Wheels?"
"Yeah! Wheels like Grammy's bed!"
Oooohh...Grammy's hospital bed! That made quite an impression during his visits.
"Are you in the hospital like Grammy?"
"Yeah!"
We continue to play this throughout the morning.

Too many monsters

2008-09-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

A lot of you have heard by now about my mom, who was diagnosed last week with a brain tumor. I won't be addressing directly much about her treatment on this page except as it pertains to life with Sam, but for those of you who would like to stay in the loop I've set up a CaringBridge website. You can find it at www.caringbridge.org/visit/carolemoscato.

So, needless to say it's been a crazy week. Mark and Sam and I headed down to Portland on Sunday evening after my dad called and Sam and I just returned on Friday night. I am so grateful to the Annie and Rosemary, who were able to watch Sam on Wednesday and Thursday so that I could go visit my mom without him at the hospital (or "hopsital," as he calls it). This has all made quite an impression on him, as I'm beginning to discover. On Tuesday, he started this very vivid imaginary play involving monsters. He would gasp and point, and whisper dramatically, "There's too many monsters here!" before running away into the next room. Mark stayed with him that day, and when I got home I found the two of them banishing them with a combination of a hand wave and "Bam!" and a sneeze. I thought it was pretty cute that he was developing such an imagination, and that he and daddy had figured out a solution together. Then, he had a few potty accidents on the days I left him to visit the hospital. Not the little leaks he's done before, but full-on wet pants that seemed to surprise and scare him a bit. Then, there was Thursday night. We were on Sam's bed snuggling and going to sleep when he studied my face deeply for a few seconds, and then said quietly, "Don't die. Don't die, mommy." I was stunned. Here I've been, having these very adult conversations about my mom right in front of him, and assuming that he doesn't understand what's going on. I've talked about tumors, and surgery, my fears...he may not understand completely, but he understands enough to be scared of imaginary monsters, to lose track of when he has to go potty, and to worry that I'm going to leave him the same way his fish did a week ago.

You're right, Sam. There are too many monsters here.

Death and the toddler

2008-08-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

"Sweetie, come sit on the bed. Mommy and Daddy need to talk to you."
Sam sits down obligingly.
"It's about Fish."
"Yeah?"
"Fish went to heaven."
"Yeah?"
"So tomorrow, he won't be in his bowl anymore."
"Yeah?"
So far this is going well.
"Daddy dump him out?"
Oh boy, a hard one. How to handle the idea of a body?
"Uhhh...he went to heaven."
Yeah, just skip over that pesky detail and focus on the positive. Bodily assumption could theoretically be possible, after all.
"He's with Jesus?"
Bingo!
"Yes, honey, he's with Jesus."
"He's happy?"
"Yes, very happy."
"He loves you?
"Yes, honey, he still loves you very much."
"Nurse?"
And we've moved on. Not sure how much of that actually sunk in. I suppose we'll find out tomorrow when he sees the empty bowl washed in the sink. Mark and I will be having our own funeral over the toilet later tonight.

Breakfast

2008-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Conversation over yogurt this morning:

"Mommy feed you?"
"Sure, honey. Are you a baby?"
"Waah, waah!"
"Should I make it a plane?"
"Yeah!"
"Vroom! Vroom! Here comes the plane! What should it be next?"
"How about a helicopter?"
"Uh, ok...Thup, thup, thup, here it comes! What next?"
"Make it a boy!"
"What? A boy?" Where does he come up with this? "What does a boy say?"
Big grin...
"Boy says, 'Hi! My name is Sam! Hi! My name is Sam!'"
I laugh. "Ok, here comes the boy! Hi, my name is Sam!"
The boy is eaten.

New baby

2008-08-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

I should probably mention on here, since I've told pretty much everyone in person, that we're having a new baby in late Jan/early Feb. We've already told Sam, and he has a few questions.

"Baby will nurse?"
"Yes, honey, the baby will nurse, and you can help teach the baby." (It's so awkward avoiding pronouns all the time).
"Baby will come with us to the park?"
"Well, the baby lives in mommy's tummy right now, so the baby will go everywhere we go."
"Baby will come out and play with you?"
"Yes, the baby will play with you when they're older, but when they're really little they'll just sleep and nurse."
"Baby loves you?"
"I'm sure the baby loves you, honey."

Olympics!

2008-08-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

Sam LOVES the Olympics. This afternoon was pretty rainy and low key, so we turned on CBC and watched a few of the competitions. First was diving.
"What they doing?"
"Diving! Do you see the splash? People cheer when they're done."
"CHEEEER!" He yells every time a diver leaves the springboard. Later, he lies on his bed and tells me he's floating in the pool.
His favorite, though, was the trampoline event. After watching a few, he starts bouncing and somersaulting all over the bed, then stands up with his arms in the air and says "Yaaay! I'm in Olympics!" I bet you will be some day.

The D Word

2008-07-31T16:04:00.001-07:00

I've found this whole parenting thing is easier sometimes if I pick a theme for a week or so and focus on it. When Sam was born, it was nursing. Later, it was getting him on a regular nap schedule. Other projects have included regular reading time, eating something besides bread and cheese, sitting still at a restaurant (well, we sort of worked on that), sleeping through the night, and entertaining himself long enough for Mommy to check e-mail.

This week, I tackled a biggie that I've feared for a while and haven't dealt with properly for too long - what the heck to do about discipline. We've tried a few things, but nothing consistent. So, this week, I watched an episode of Super Nanny and was inspired with a few ideas about naughtly spots and timers and such.

A few days ago, I was typing at the computer when I heard a tell-tale splash. I turned around, and there was Sam looking intently at the puddle that he just made from the open water glass that I stupidly trusted him with. He's done this on several occasions, and knows it's wrong.

"Sam, we don't spill water on purpose. You have until the count of three to clean it up with this towel or we have a time-out. One, two..."

"No! No, no, no!"

"Three. OK, time for a time-out."

Howl! "No, mommy! Don't put me in time-out!"

"Sorry, kiddo, you had a chance to clean it up. Now you can try again after the time-out."

I plunk his bottom down and set the timer for two minutes. He cries, lays down, stamps his feet, but stays in the corner.

Clock beeps, out he comes.

"Ok, let's clean it up."

"Noooo!"

"I'll count to three and you need to clean it up, or back in time out. One, two, three."

"Nooo!"

And back to time-out he goes. You get the idea. This took about 3 cycles before he took the towel and made a few feeble swipes at the mess, fulfilling his obligation. Afterwards, he wanted to hug and snuggle, and we had a little chat about what happened. All of this was done in a calm voice and demeanor.

So, here's the interesting secret that I discovered this week. They say that toddlers need boundaries - that it makes them feel safe and secure. Well, guess what? Same works for parents. Instead of wasting energy being angry, reprimanding, chasing him around or ignoring it, which was my previous MO, I calmly know what do to and do it because I have a PLAN. The PLAN keeps me safe and secure, too.

The corrilary to this is that I have to be careful what I say "no" to, because I need to be willing to go through this rigamarole every time I say it. There are ways I can say no without uttering the actual word - distraction, etc. I also have to ask myself if I'm just momentarily annoyed and the behavior is really something I can live with, like him emptying out a drawer of all the pots and pans.

Not that I have the secret answer to all of this now, but life has been so much easier since I started thinking of discipline this way. It's not a burden, it doesn't have to be painful or punative. It just is a consequence for an action that I help facilitate. And it ends with hugs.

Preschool may be kaput

2008-07-29T12:27:00.001-07:00

I asked Sam if he wanted to try preschool again today, and the answer was "Mommy stay with you?" That should have been a sign, I think.

To give some background, Sam had his first day by himself at a local drop-in preschool a few weeks ago, and I returned to pick him up after 2 hours only to hear his wailing from all the way down the hall. It turns out that he spiked a pretty big fever that day and got sick for the next few days. It probably didn't help that he didn't know any of the teachers or kids very well, and, as preschools often do, they had a schedule for the day that required a lot of transitions from him. All of that combined to make for a pretty miserable kid.

So, we took a break and tried again last week, and at the door he clung to me and wailed. I stayed for the hour to help him manage all the transitions and hopefully give him a good preschool experience to replace the old one. I thought that maybe, just maybe, today we could try again and I could maybe, just maybe, leave to get a cup of coffee and see how he did. I talked to him about it this morning, and he was skeptical.

We got ready for the day, and it was fraught with conflict. Looking back, I'm sure I was in a cruddy mood at the thought of dealing with another day at preschool, and so was he. We were downstairs trying to get out the door when it hit me - my yoga center has a mom-tot yoga class that we haven't tried in almost a year, and it started in a half hour.

"Sam, do you want to go to preschool or yoga today?"

"Yoga? Mommy leave you?"

"No honey, I'll be doing yoga, but I'll be in the same room with you. You can play with the toys."

"Go to yoga? Play with toys?"

So, there was my answer. And the rest of the morning was lovely for both of us. I got to do yoga while Sam plays with the toys and the other kids, and we both left feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

I think that if both of us were so stressed out about a possible preschool session that we got that crabby at each other, it's not worth it right now. We'll try again in another couple months.

Today, I am a pirate

2008-07-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sam and I have a few games that we've developed. They're funny in a way that only something a toddler makes up can be funny.

The Pirate Game started yesterday. During lunch, this came out of my mouth: "Arrrrgh, matey, you be eatin your sandwich now!" This developed quickly into me wearing a dishrag on my head and saying things like "scurvy," which then turned into a game when we went upstairs for nap time, and Sam started bringing me the contents of my jewelry box while saying, "Here you go, Pirate!" "Arrrrgh, these be mighty fine jewels! I'll be wearing this one, and you be wearing that one!" "Aaargh!" agrees Sam.

"Close Your Eyes" is pretty simple. I close my eyes at Sam's request, and he shoves his face right up to mine and screams to wake me up. Not my favorite game.

The best current game, though, has to be "Dirty Food." In this game, Sam pinches some imaginary food between his fingers and brings it to me with a mischevious "Here you go, Mama!"

"What's this?" I ask.

"Dirty food!" he exclaims gleefully.

"Oh, well, I'm pretty hungry. I guess I'll eat it." (Sam is squealing and wringing his hands in delight at this point).

I eat it with relish, and then proceed to get sick, go into convulsions and pass out on the floor. Sam loves this. He then does the only thing that will cure me - a kiss. And I wake up and thank him, and the game starts over.

Now, for something more fun...

2008-07-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

So, the day before Stitch Day, we had a wonderful tim going to the Wallingford Kiddie Parade. Here are some pictures of our day.

Scarface

2008-07-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

I was all set to write about last week (first day at a drop-in preschool, fever and illness - a good story), when we were suddenly thrown into a new experience last night.

It all started as I was getting ready to go sing at church. Sam was running around, buck nekkid of course, when I turned just in time to see his bus come out from under him and he landed - smack! - face-down on the floor. I did what I usually do; I waited to see if he would cry before I rushed in. Suddenly he did cry, and it was a different cry altogether. I ran and picked him up, and blood...everywhere. I couldn't tell at first where it came from, if he'd lost a tooth, or bitten his tongue, then I saw the big hole in his lip. We rushed to Children's Hospital where, long story short, it took 5 people and a kiddie dose of valium to keep him even moderately still, and even then he still screamed his head off while the patient doctor wiated for the right moment to put in 3 stitches. They wrapped him burrito style in a sheet, Mark was laying next to him and holding him, two nurses were at his head, and I and another nurse had his legs. I thought I was handling it pretty well, but about half-way through I let go of him for a break, and realized that my arms and jaw were shaking uncontrollably. Where's the valium for MOM, huh?

Almost immediately afterward, he sat up and asked for water, and proceeded to chug two apple juices and chow down on a package of teddy grahams, smiling and chatting with us all the while. I still needed to sit down.

So, that's visit #3 to Children's Hospital in about a year. I think perhaps we should buy stock.

Big Boy

2008-06-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

It seemslike whenever I crow about something on here, it has a mysterious way of ceasing. So, I have been understandably reluctant to write the following two sentences. Sam has been using the potty on a regular basis. He's also been sleeping through the night for about a week.

First, the sleeping thing. He'd been sleeping through about every 3rd or 4th night, and I really felt like the times he was waking up to nurse had become more of a want than a need. I also needed more sleep. So, we decided that Mark would take over night comforting duties, and we would tell Sam that "Na-na's are asleep now - you can nurse when it's day." It took about 5 nights of various degrees of protest, but I never felt like he was being deprived of something he absolutely needed. And, on the 6th day, he slept. For 9 hours. I should add that because it's summer, "day" appears in our window around 5 in the morning, so to get a full night's sleep we've needed to go to bed earlier. But, the hours in a row have been nice, and at the 5:00 mark I hear "It's day! You can nurse?" and he crawls into bed next to me. That morning nurse has gotten pretty long to make up for it, but that's fine with me.

And now, the potty! I'd heard that M&Ms work magic, so we thought we'd try it - one for a pee-pee, and two for a poop. Seriously, that kid is MOTIVATED. You'd think we never give him chocolate. For the last few days, I've had about one wet diaper a day and no poop. He even used our big potty with his little seat on it. He always tells me if he needs to go, and on one occasion he managed to hold it until we got home. Is he a potty savant? The one owwry I have is that he's doing it for the chocolate, and not the pride of being a big boy. But then I realized: I don't really care. The next step is to get him excited about "big-boy pants." I think that will be a Mark thing.

So, here's the funny thing about both of these things, and maybe another reason I've been reluctant to write about this. As much as I complained about getting up at night, and as dismal as changing and washing diapers and wiping a bottom can be, I sort of...miss it. It's weird. I thought I'd be jumping up and down, and I mostly am. But there's a part of me that realizes that he's growing up and needing me less, and that in the grand scheme of things, the amount of time that he did need me so intensely was so short and precious. I know they tell you that, and you don't believe them when you're in the thick of it...but it's true.

Little athlete

2008-06-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

A few amazing little tidbits from our play gym time today:

Sam learned to pedal a tricycle! He's been working on it for a while, but I think having a few different ones to try out and watching the other kids helped a lot.

He's a gymnast! There's this long, slippery slide with a pad at the bottom, and kids were just flying and rolling off the end. Sam did this the first time, too, but then every time after that, he stuck it like he was in the Olympics - arms forward, evenly on both feet. I half expected him to raise his arms and bow to three sides.

So, will he win the gold in cycling or on the vault?

Rant of the month

2008-06-12T12:31:00.001-07:00

I figure I don't really go off on rants all that much (maybe Mark will disagree), but this really set me off today.

Where we live is a pretty well-off demographic area, and we see lots of nannies with their charges at our playground. For the most part, they're lovely women who are involved in their kids' lives. One bad one can ruin the day for everyone, though...

Sam and I arrived at the park, and he made a beeline for the sandbox, which contained two brand-new plastic wheelbarrows. Anyone who knows Sam knows that it would be a chilly day you-know-where before he'd pass up a chance at one of those. Trouble is, two kids - a girl about 3 1/2 and a boy about 4 - had them cornered, and they were not about to share. "Noooo!" yelled the little girl. "I'm using that!" whined the boy. I glanced around - no one watching these kids, apparently. Lots of moms chatting on the bench, a few grouped around the slides, all spoken for by kids. Except for that one girl on the bench zoning out in the other direction listening to her IPod. I had a sinking feeling. Fine, we'd find something else to do. What ensued was me taking a gradually escalating Sam repeatedly away from the sandbox where he was making a grab for the wheelbarrows, the kids continued to refuse to share, and I started making louder statements about how "maybe we can all work out how to share, since you two have had a long turn now." I was getting sympathetic looks from the other moms. IPod girl was still zoned out. I eventually went over to the bench and asked pointedly, "Does anyone know who's with those kids? Because I'd like to work out a way for us to share the toys." Nothing. Finally, I became bossy mom. I went over to the sandbox and said "Look, guys, Sam has been waiting for a turn, so let's figure this out. Can you guys share a wheelbarrow while Sam pushes one around?" Sure that was fine - just "not mine." Grrr. Finally, I was noticed by IPod girl, who came over, and managed to drag Lauren, the girl, away from one of them. "How about we play with it for 10 minutes and we bring it back?" I asked, in the absence of any constructive input from the nanny. She petulantly agreed. So, Sam finally got his turn, and the kids had snacks on the bench. After 10 minutes, I told Sam it was time to return the wheelbarrow to Lauren. And he did.

Look, lady, the point of nannying is not to just make sure that the kids don't get killed or kidnapped at the park, which you were barely doing anyway. It's to provide them with guidance and attention until their parents get home. I wish I could talk to your employers about how you did your job today, but unfortunately I don't know them and probably wouldn't have the guts if I did. All I can do is write my little scree and feel a little better, and hope that this isn't representative of the rest of your day.

Whew. I feel better.

A trip to the park

2008-06-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a little reminder that Sam's growing up. We were at the park, and all of the kids from the preschool down the street were there, too. He played very nicely with a few of them, pointing out one girl's zipper and then helping her with it, and then sitting in the big tube with a few kids facing the side and suggesting to them that they were "watching TV," which they all agreed to. Then, the monitor yelled, "All Magnolia co-op kids - we're going now!" The kids all gathered round the little rope and grabbed on, and started walking away. "Where they going?" asked Sam. "They're going to preschool, kiddo," I answered. He looked like the most forlorn, envious little two-year old in the world. "Go with them?" "Sorry, honey, you're not in preschool yet." And we stood there and watched the big kids go back to preschool.

The trip was salvaged shortly afterwards with the arrival of Lorelai, a very cute 3 and a half year old. She loved playing with Sam, and he followed her around, star-struck. At one point, he said "hold her hand?" and tentatively reached for her hand. She looked down at his little paw and grabbed on, and they walked, swinging their arms, over to the sandbox.

Then and now

2008-05-28T13:24:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday!

2008-05-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Sam,

Today you turn two! Your daddy and I were thinking about how you came into the world this morning while we gazed at you sleeping by yourself on the bed, lounged out like a teenager. You crawled in with us this morning around 5:30 after sleeping through the night. What a big boy!

This was the year that you turned into a little man. You can climb down the stairs all by yourself. You can jump up in the air with both feet. This was the year when you started telling daddy and me "I love you" and asking for kisses at bedtime. This was the year you started to make us laugh on purpose because you knew we liked it, and that made you feel good. This was the year that you started talking in full sentences, and started to say "Did you see THAT, Mama?!?" at every opportunity. This was the year that I no longer had to stick to you like glue at the playground, and I can watch you run, jump and play from a longer distance. This was the year that you started to like bugs, and I'm very proud that you don't stomp on them. This was the year of our first (and second) scary visit to the ER. This was the year that you started to sing, and your little voice is so beautiful.

When I think about next year, I think of that perfect morning we had last week. Remember? You and I went to the library and looked at a few books, then you held my hand and we walked together to the coffee shop down the street. You stopped and looked for cars at the corner, and then you picked out your own doughnut in the shop and sat with me at a table while you ate it. Then, we walked back to the car and stopped to look at a colony of ants. Suddenly, Sam, you've gone from being an appendage to being my little friend with your own opinions and your own Sam-like way of doing things.

I know things won't always be smooth. In the future, there might be slammed doors, or yelling, or saying or doing things you wish you could take back. But, I will always remember this, Sam - you holding my hand, you snuggled up to me to nurse, you jumping into my arms. I will always be here, and I will always catch you.

Toddler Humor

2008-05-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

The things that make me laugh about Sam seem to be divided into two categories: things that are funny to me and not funny to him (or maybe they are funny to me BECAUSE they're not funny to him and should be), and things that are funny to him and are therefore funny to me because he thinks they're so funny.

We were reading Goodnight Moon today when we ran into an example of the first. On one particular page, the "old bunny" as Sam calls her is missing from her chair, leaving only her knitting behind. Sam was really concerned about this: "Old bunny! Where's Old Bunny?" "Where do you think she went?" I asked. "In the little house," he said, pointing to the little dollhouse in the forefront of the picture. "Why did she go in there?" I asked. "Going potty," he replied matter-of factly. Makes sense - even fictional characters have to go sometimes, and the little house was right there...He also told me during the same reading that the two kittens were staring at the Old Bunny in one picture because they wanted to go to McDonald's.

He also has his little jokes that he thinks are very funny. One of his favorite phrases is "Win the lottery and buy and RV." The short history behind this phrase is that he's been really interested in RVs since our trip last fall, and when he asked if we could buy one, Mark replied that we could if we won the lottery. That made quite an impression.

So, we hear "win the lottery and buy an RV" at least daily, if not more. A few days ago, he was on a roll with this and looked at Mark with a mischevious expression and came up with, "win the lottery and buy a CAR???" (Shrieks of laughter). As in, "you thought I was going to say RV because I always say RV, but I FOOLED you and said CAR instead!!! HAHAHAHA!

I think he's got a ways to go before Last Comic Standing...

I turn my back for one minute...

2008-05-13T15:37:00.001-07:00

I was getting ready to bake some bread with Sam this afternoon and turned my back for a minute while he explored a drawer. I turned back around, and....

Yes, that's my red lipstick. My expensive red lipstick.

Odds and Ends

2008-05-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Sam has a cold. He woke up yesterday morning with an incredibly runny nose and started sniffing in and out, then exclaimed, "Pig!" with great delight. Apparently the best part about having a stuffy nose is being able to make pig noises. Way to turn lemons into lemonaide, Sam.

A few days ago, we were riding in the car and I had this phone-in advice show on. Suddenly from the back, Sam shouts, "That's normal!" This continued all the way home, and it's still a favorite phrase. I suppose I have to be careful about what I listen to, but it is nice to get reassurance that I'm normal now and then.

I forgot to post this earlier, but Sam has started to sing! It's just about the sweetest thing in the world. His current favorites are the ABC song, Happy Birthday, Skiddama rink-a-dink ("something unintelligible-a-dink-a-dink") and Wheels on the Bus, which he's turned into Wheels on the Car, Wheels on the truck, Wheels on the Van and Wheels on the Bike. He's absolutely not shy about singing right out, even in front of other people. Took me years to do that!

Diaper dilemma

2008-05-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

I think I may be crazy, but I'm having second thoughts about something we've done with Sam from birth - disposable diapering. This all started the night before last when I ran up to the Thriftway to get some Ibuprofin for our furiously teething toddler. In the baby aisle I found a starter set for flushable diapers. I recalled earlier that day when I had hauled out our almost weekly load of non-biodegradable waste to the trash, and about how Sam's great-great-great-great-great grandchild will be able to go to a landfill and find his or her great-great-great-great grandfather's poop encased in a plastic liner, and I bought the kit. Great, right? All of the convenience and none of the waste. Fast forward to today, when, after doing research online and figuring out exactly how expensive those little disposable liners are, I found myself with a poopy diaper doing the choreography necessary to actually flush the thing. Rip off both sides, let the filling fall into the toilet, stir with "swizzle stick" (kid you not), flush, wait for the filling to almost go completely down, and drop in the liner. Then hope it doesn't clog. After this little exercise, I started thinking: Would doing cloth diapers really be that much harder? I called my friend Laurel, a cloth diapering mommy, and grilled her, and it turns out that it's really not. I'd been resistant to it when Sam was born because there was so much else going on, and the only way it could possibly be cheaper would be if we washed our own, which at the time seemed unthinkable. Oh, I seriously underestimated the ridiculously high immunity I would develop toward poop, didn't I?

So, after talking to Laurel and doing hours of online research, I think we're going to make the switch. I want to do this with a future baby, so why not start now? In wishful thinking land, maybe Sam will notice he's wet more often and want to use the potty! The worst thing that happens is that I go back to destroying the earth one poop-bomb at a time.

I'll keep everyone posted on this little adventure...

Other pictures from the fair

2008-05-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

A chip off the old block...

2008-05-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

Sam's first pony ride. Good thing we had the cowboy hat, Papa!

We went to a preschool fair on Mercer Island last weekend, and couldn't resist Merlin and his green mane. Sam took to it like a cowboy to a horse.

Tiptoe through the tulips

2008-04-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

We all went to the Tulip festival in Mt. Vernon last weekend, and the weather was great! Sam's favorite part was riding the tractor around the field. A bunch of older boys were hanging out the back yelling "Whoa, look at the mud!" every time it splashed in a puddle, and Sam of course had to get in on the action and yell right along with them. He shouted "Whoa, mud!" for the next few days. And of course, he told the driver "thank you" when he was done.

2008-04-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

We took Sam to Krispy Creme last Fridaynight to watch the donuts being made and pick out his very own. Of course, he picked the one with all the colored sprinkles. Here's the messy result.

Sayings

2008-04-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

Things I have said today:

"We wear pants when we are out in the world."

"No, honey, I said apple juice will help you poop,not that there's poop in the apple juice."

"You won't be saying 'yay taxes' in about 20 years, kid."

Visit to Portland

2008-04-13T12:30:00.001-07:00

Two sides of the same coin...

2008-04-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Can you guess who the second handsome little man is? Hint: It's not Mark.

Chocolate Pudding!

2008-04-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

Our walk

2008-04-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our walk last week at the arboretum.

A Miracle!

2008-04-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

A miracle occured last night. Per usual, Sam and I were laying on his bed nursing until he went to sleep. He was restless, and got up to ask for a drink of water, which I had nearby. Then, he wouldn't lay down to nurse again. "Go night-night like this!" he said, and laid down with his head near my feet. Okay, I thought, I'll go with this. "Do you want me to do anything, sweetie?" I asked, wondering how much longer he'd do this before getting down to the business of going to sleep. "Sing Little Star." "Okay, do you want me to rub your back?" "Rub back." So I rubbed his back and sang...and he was asleep in about 10 minutes! First time ever that nursing has been available during night-night, and he chose something else instead. When I told my mom about this, she asked if it hurt my feelings a little. I don't think it exactly hurt my feelings - it's more that I'm realizing that he's growing up and changing, and some things he really needed as a baby he doesn't need so much anymore, and I'm one of those things. I don't expect that suddenly he's going to stop nursing at night, but it's the beginning of a journey towards it. Sort of sad.

Sam speak

2008-03-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

Some Samisms:

Hay-ohs = Cheerios
Trawler = Trailer
QRSUV = SUV
Hinging = Singing
Hoy-oh = Squirrel (Took us a while to figure that one out)

Some favorite phrases:

"Oooh-kaaay, mama cleans it up." = Said after I ask him to clean something up. Probably what he wishes I would say.
"Greasy Ham" = Green eggs and Ham, his current favorite.

Whirlwind Easter

2008-03-25T14:39:00.001-07:00

Wow, it's been way too long since I've posted. Holy Week happened to us last week, and we're still recovering. We all went to bed at 9 on Sunday. Sam and I woke up at 8 and while I can't speak for Sam, I still feel like I got run over by a truck. Or by the Easter Bunny.

Sam was incredibly fascinated by Easter. We went to an egg hunt on Saturday and explained that the Easter Bunny would be leaving eggs that he would collect and put in a basket. He did such a good job that Mark had to steal some eggs out of his basket when he wasn't looking and put them back for other kids to find. Interesting that the community center chose to put things of such appropriateness as small erasers in the eggs for the 1-3 year-olds. I can understand not puttingcandy in every single one, but small chokeable erasers that look like they should be eaten? Really?

On Sunday morning Sam woke up and we asked him who visited last night. Eyes lit up: "Easter Bunny? Eggs?" We wandered downstairs after Daddy checked to make sure that E.B. wasn't still there,and it took Sam a minute to realize that the basket and the presents were for him. Then, he wanted to play with his new Percy train and not open anything else. With some gentle prodding and lots of unwrapping done by Mommy, we eventually got through everything and then hastily made breakfast before I had to return once again to church. When I got home, naps were taken, movies were watched, and dinner was cooked by someone at The Spaghetti Factory. Then, as I stated before, bedtime was at 9.

What a week.

Fierce!

2008-03-06T16:25:00.001-08:00

I let Sam dress himself today after his nap and this was the result. Just so no one freaks out, he wore it for an hour and we changed before we went to Costco. And I let that kid watch Project Runway. Jeesh.