In Praise of Tin

Did you know traditionally ten years is the tin anniversary? Not very romantic, is it? And yet, the more I think about it, the more apt it seems to me that this milestone should be marked with this malleable metal.

When I think of tin, I think of the camping dishes The Man I Didn't Marry and I used to have. By the time we didn't get married afterall they were scratched and dented, battered and changed from years of use, but still holding on to their basic shape and function. I imagine that a decade old marriage is a bit like that. It's not the bright, shiny new thing you started out with anymore; by now it's been knocked about a bit, picked up a scratch here and a dent there and been bent a bit out of shape along the way, but if you look past all that, it's still the same thing it always was. Now, though, it's been tested and experience has proved it can stand up to whatever life throws at it.

Today is my ten year anniversary. Well, "unnaversary" is a more exact (if made up) term, I guess. Ten years ago tonight, I was supposed be signing the contract that officially recognize the start of my brand new, shiny life. Instead, I signed a lease for my very first apartment and started out on a new life--one that was very different from what I'd been planning only a few short months before. And now, a decade later, I realize that while I've picked up my share of dents, I'm still in pretty good shape--malleable enough to bend with the inevitable knocks along the way, but strong enough to hold my shape in the end.

Fun With Homynyms

"Pees is like water." Zen Baby tells me as we carry her latest offering to the potty gods into the bathroom for disposal.

"Yeah, I guess so." I answer, a little taken aback by the comparison but impressed by the cognitive skills she's showing in making it. "But pee is not for drinking," I hasten to add.

"Pees is yummy." She says, triumphantly flushing the toilet.

"No!" I quickly disgree, more than a little disturbed by the direction of this conversation. "Pee is not yummy! Yuck!"

"Yes yummy." She tells me. "Yummy supper pees."

"Oh!" The penny drops. "You mean the little green peas we eat on your plate?"

"Yeah." She answers, looking at me like I'm an idiot.

"Yeah." I agree, relieved. "Those peas are yummy."

Who knew potty training would include discussions like this?

Long Weekend Recap

Monday long weekends always mess me up. I can never keep the days of the week straight when Monday is lumped in with the rest of the weekend. Which is probably why I was up at 7 o'clock this morning, scrambling to get lunches made and to find my other white high heeled sandal before I had to hustle the kids out the door to Grandma's.

Fortunately, Sabrina does not seem to be equally calendar challenged, and patiently explained to me that it's Saturday. I just wish she'd done that before I'd done the pantyhose dance.

I'm particularly surprised that I made this mistake, given how, um...memorable our Victoria Day was. This year I broke down and gave The Ladies sparklers. I thought about taking pictures to commemorate the event, but quickly came to my senses. Handing a three year-old a flaming stick to run around with is stressful enough without adding the pressure of trying to get that perfect scrapbook photo into the mix. Although, I'm sure The Preschooler Formerly Known As Zen chasing her sister and trying to light her on fire would have made one heck of a Kodak Moment.

As would the look on my fully made up face when Diva Girl settled in for a morning filled with cartoons and not an much else.

Rising From the Ashes

I'm back.

No snazzy new macBook, sadly. Same old SPOC, fresh from the Genesis Planet (or, you know, my dad's workshop. Same thing, really.) with a big bright new (to me) monitor and a hard drive that doesn't crash every 3 minutes. So, it's not the fabulous laptop of my dreams, but it's still a computer, and having gone back to living life in the dark ages (or, you know, the early 90s), I'm just happy to have a means to be back on line sitting in my living room, even if it is tethered to a desk.

It's strange, but it's actually a little daunting to wade back into the web after a two week hiatus. I've been trying to keep up, but I lost all my bookmarks, and when bloglines tells me that my feeds have upwards of 100 posts to catch up on, well....wow. I never realized what a big part of my life the internet had become until I disconnected from it. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I love the internet. The cool stuff you can find. The wealth of information. The interesting people. Not to mention the strangers who have become friends. Friends I couldn't pick out of a lineup if my life depended on it, but friends nonetheless. Those are all things I love about the interweb. But, it's a timesucker. And I'm a natural procrastinator. Not the best fit really. So there's that. I'm not sure what it all means. Certainly not that I'm giving it all up to go live in Amish country. I refuse to live life without email, and I'm not sure which I missed more, blogging or lurking. But I'm going to try to remember to turn off the computer more often (and not just so that I don't blow out another power supply).

Not until I've gorged myself on all the blogs I've been missing though. Baby steps and all.

Radio Silence

So, I haven't been ignoring you all (both here and on your own blogs); my computer blew up. Well, my monitor, actually. Which was kind of surprising. Given the constant rebooting the hard drive has been doing (often just as I'm about to hit send on a post or a comment, because it hates me), I figured that that would be the part to go. The bright flash of light from the monitor though, now that was a surprise.

I'm trying to cobble together a solution and will hopefully be back soon. I hope so, anyway. I miss my not quite real and yet oh so satisfying life.

Happy Mother's Day

"Happy Mudder's Day, Mama."

"Thank you, Zen Baby."

"No, Mama! You're doin' it wrong!"

"What's wrong? I said 'Thank you." Didn't you hear me?"

"No, that's wrong. You're s'posed to say 'Happy Mother's Day, Regan."

"Oh. Happy's Mother's Day, Regan."

"That's better."

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Sit On It

Between the ages of 14 and 19 I spent most of my Saturday nights sitting in someone else's livingroom, snacking on the requisite pop and chips while their children slept in the other room. I was a Babysitter. I tell you this not to illustrate how pathetically nerdy I was during my teen years, but as background to my revelations that while I spent a significant portion of my youth watching other people's children, my own children have never had a Babysitter. Sure, The Ladies had a home daycare provider, but they've never experienced the "teenager who brings her homework to your house int he evening while your parents go out" variety of babysitter.

Until tonight.

Tonight I'm forging new territory and instead of leaving leaving The Ladies with my parents while I go out, I have engaged the services of my very first teenage babysitter.

The Ladies are beyond excited by this new development. Grandma's house has apparently lost some of its cool now that they're there nearly every day anyway, and Diva Girl especially is at the age where a 14 year old girl is the epitome of sophistication and style. Truth be told, I'm kinda excited too. Not just because I'll be seeing a movie that I want to see for once, but because this feels like a rite of passage for me as well as The Ladies--like by paying for someone to come to my house and rummage through my bathroom cabinets means that's I'm finally going out like a real grownup.

I've gone out before, of course, to dinners, movies, even on dates, but I've always dropped The Ladies off at my parents' place and then rushed to pick them up as soon as possible. It might not have been the most convenient arrangement in terms of an easy bedtime routine, but it did have some things going for it: for one thing, Grandparents baby sit for free, while teenagers require an hourly rate, plus all the junk food they can eat. Plus, a good babysitter can be hard to find. Sure, I meet a lot of teenagers through work, but somehow the idea of inviting one into my house to rifle through my underwear just hasn't seemed like a good idea, even if it did mean that the kids would be in bed when I go home. Fortunately, the fact that my high school had a boom in teenage pregnancies in the early nineties means I didn't have to resort to that extreme: My friends' daughters are now the perfect age for use as indentured servants--er...Babysitters.

So, tonight when I go out (by myself!!!) there will be no rushing (unless you count rushing out the door). Tonight I'll be taking my time getting home, knowing that even if they're not sleeping, The Ladies will at least be in bed when I get home. And, when I give the Babysitter her instructions, point out the emergency numbers, tell her where to find the Tylenol and the hidden stash of potato chips, I'll feel a little bit of nostalgia for the awkward, geeky girl who spent so many years listening to the same litany, but mostly pleased with myself that I'm finally on the other end of that conversation.

Another Tear in my Supermom Cape

Now that my mom has taken over the daycare duties and I'm no longer choosing jobs based on how long The Ladies will be at the babysitter's, I've been working a lot more. Nearly full time, in fact. Which is great from a financial standpoint, but it's been a long time since I worked these kind of hours--in fact, back then I only had one Lady, not two--and I'd forgotten how complicated it can all be. For the most part I've been on top of it. Lunches have been made, homework done, agendas (mostly) signed. And, until today, everyone's had clean underwear.

I knew that it was Diva Girl's swimming field trip today. I knew that because I was working, we would be leaving the house at 7:30 this morning. I thought I had it all under control. Last night I made lunches for both of us and laid out our clothes, congratulating myself on remembering to put out Diva Girl's swimsuit and to roll her underwear inside her towel before putting it in her swim bag. After all, there are few things worse when you are eight years old than having everyone see your underwear. This morning, we were even up and out of the house with five minutes to spare; I even remembered our lunches. The swim bag, however, was left hanging from the door knob. Where I discovered it when I got home this afternoon.

Oops.

I don't have any real objections to "going commando," but it's hard to imagine something more emblematic of falling down on the motherhood job than sending your child to school with an unfurnished basement. Really, in the grand scheme of things, forgetting to send your kids' lunch to school pales in comparison with forgetting to send her underpants. At least I'd given in on the tankini front so I could console myself that while she might have spent part of the day with a damp bottom, London and France hadn't gone totally unrepresented.

Going to the Chapel

Mir is getting married today!

I've admitted before that I have some prejudices about having a relationship as a single mom. And, in the general sense, the idea of a Step-Father makes me nervous (not that I'm not sure that many of you do not have perfectly lovely step fathers in your lives. As I said, these are my personal, gut reaction feelings to the complicated situation that is having an adult relationship with a man who is not the father of your children). But none of that matters today, because I am cheering Mir and Otto with as much joy and excitement over their new life together as anyone who is actually at that wedding today.

Mir and Otto are a love story, plain and simple. And who doesn't love a love story? Especially one that involves a 17 year gap between the meet and the marry, a comedy of errors over a wedding ring, and boob tape.

In all seriousness, Mir has been generous enough to let us in and follow this story, from the first devastating breakup, to the reunion, the proposal, the planning, and most importantly, The Year of Living Changerously as they began to grow this new family. I've felt inspired by them. Like maybe, just maybe, if I wanted to, I could make it all work together in one big pot rather than compartmentalizing my life in the ways that I do.

Mir and Otto give me hope that happy endings really do happen. But that's not the case here, because really, this is just the beginning of a love story that I hope lasts longer than they could have ever imagined.

Congratulations and good luck, Mir, Otto, Monkey and Chickadee! You deserve the ever after ever!

Estragon and Vladimir Play Knock Knock

Sabrina is trying to teach her sister the art of the knock knock joke. At three years old, the Shaolin Toddler has a sense of humour, but it's not quite sophisticated enough to grasp the subtle wordplay at work here. To me, the entire exchange resembles nothing so much as a lost scene from "Waiting for Godot."

Diva Girl: Say "knock knock" , Regan.

Regan: Knock knock

DG: Who's there?

R: Knock Knock!

DG: Knock knock who?

R: KNOCK KNOCK!!!!

DG: Knock knock who? Now you say "Banana."

R: Banana!

DG: Banana who?

R: Knock Knock!

DG: Knock knock.

R: Banana knock knock!!!

Pot, Meet Kettle

"Mama! She's talkin' wif her mouf full!"

My budding Emily Post is only too happy to point out her sister's lapse in etiquette. However, her outrage would probably carry more weight were morsels of her dinner not dribbling down her chin as she made this statement.

She Had It Comin'

Like her big sister, the Shaolin Toddler is a huge fan of the musical Chicago. Unlike Diva Girl, however, Regan seems to have the Cell Block Tango all figured out.

"Mom! Regan hit me in the face!"

"No I dint. It was an accident."

"You accidentally hit your sister in the face?"

"Yeah. Two times."

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

Ann Adams is somewhat of a legend in the parenting blog community--a great grandmother raising a third generation of children (3 beautiful girls) with a patience, style, and passion that is inspiring to behold. She started blogging a couple of years back, after her post-like commenting at the former Blogging Baby lead writer Jen Creer to set her up her own account on blogspot. She's still a frequent contributor to the discussions over at Parentdish, though; in many circles (liberal, leftwing ones, mostly), it's understood that once Granny chimes in on an issue with her trademark compassion and common sense, there really isn't much more to say.

In addition to those aforementioned great-granddaughters, Ann's household also includes Ray, her husband, and Carol, her daughter and Elsie, Rochelle, and Rebecca's grandmother. Ray has a host of health problems that keep him in and out of the hospital, and for the last while Carol has been in hospice care as the ravages of cancer took their toll on her.

Carol's suffering has ended. Ann's, while certainly not beginning, has just taken an awful turn into a mother's worst nightmare. No mother, be she newly minted or a great-grandmother, should be forced to outlive a child. It is heartbreaking, and wrong, and goes against the very notion of the circle of life.

Just before I read the news that Carol was finally at peace, The Ladies were driving me nuts. The whining and the fighting and the just plain ugly they were spouting had me dreaming of an escape hatch--of a world of possibility in which I was not somebody's mother and did not have to care who started it or whether or not the vegetables were eaten before dishing up the ice cream. After though....It's amazing how quickly perspective can shift. Suddenly, the squabbling and stress don't really matter. All that matters is that my girls are here, healthy and whole.

I don't really have the words to express to Ann my sorrow at her loss and she's too far away to hug, so I'll hug my own daughters instead, and hope that she knows that it's meant for her.

Mother's Day, Solo Style

Mother's Day is not a holiday designed with solo mothers in mind. All of those craft projects and breakfasts in bed so lovingly portrayed in the ads for everything from flowers to diamonds don't happen in a vacuum, after all. Someone has to supervise the children creating these masterpieces, and it stands to reason that when you're the only person in the house authorized to use the scissors or turn on the stove, chances are it's going to be you.

I realized this on my very first Mother's Day; five month olds aren't really known for their gift giving--diaper presents nothwithstanding--and unless you count nursing while lying down, they really don't do breakfast in bed, either. Sure, there was a moment or two that first year spent mourning the loss of the hallmark inspired fantasy, but then the overwhelming sense of freedom set in. As a solo mom, I had the opportunity to truly make Mother's Day my own--to make it all about me in the way most moms can only dream of.

I wouldn't say that I've avoided the commercialization of Mother's Day for the past eight years, but I've certainly engaged with it on my own terms. No sappy Hallmark cards or potted mums (that I will inevitably kill) for me. For me, Mother's Day has been all about indulging myself in whatever whim cannot be justified in the course of the regular budget. Past gifts to myself have included a pedicure, a ridiculously expensive lipgloss, a visit from Molly Maid to scrub the walls and cabinets that I keep meaning to get to but never do. After all, just because no one else is lining up to shower me with tokens of appreciation for all I do doesn't mean I should miss out. Mother’s Day is my excuse to focus on Me and what I want, for a change.

This year, however, is looking different. This year, Diva Girl's awareness of Mother's Day has grown beyond the requisite grade school art project and she's been talking about my present. As though she has something to do with this whole Mother’s Day thing.

In my family, there are two Mother’s Day gifts that have reached the status of legend: The football and The Partridge Family Album.

I don't actually remember the football, but my mom does. Apparently my older brothers were a bit fuzzy on the concept and instead of asking my mom what she wanted for Mother's Day, they spent a month assuring her that what she really wanted, more than anything, was a new football. That year, on the second Sunday in May, my mother's heart's desire was realized when she presented my brothers with their brightly wrapped pigskin. I'm not sure what she got that year, other than the joy of watching her excited boys toss that ball around the backyard. Which I’m sure was nice and all, but still isn’t nearly as great an “all about me” gift as a fabulous new pair of shoes.

I do remember The Partridge Family Album, though; in fact, huddling in my brothers' bedroom gleefully wrapping this record up, certain that it was the absolute best gift ever, is one of my very first memories. We bought this record with our own money for my mother, who was far more into the musical stylings of Conway Twitty than one of the original made for T.V. pop acts. I don’t really remember if her smile was rueful or not as she thanked us for her gift.; I just remember that she smiled, and put the record on.

I’m not sure what Diva Girl will come up with for the big day, although I’m fairly certain that I will be financing her generosity. Part of me mourns the loss of my utterly selfish Mother’s Day, but mostly I think this ability to look outside herself is an exciting development in the path to the person my daughter will be. And really, watching her grow up is the best Mother’s Day present of all.

Who Says Homework Can't Be Fun?

Third Grade spelling homework is mindnumbingly dull. Except when, unexpectedly, it takes a turn into the laugh out loud absurd.

One of the regular exercises is “replace the vowel.” Basically, the kids have to take the spelling words in the list and make a new word by changing the main vowel. It’s generally a pretty boring 20 minutes of Diva Girl running through the vowel sounds and periodically asking “Mom! Is this a word?”

Last week she came up with “blog.” I was so proud. This week though…This week, one of the words was “duck.” And when she asked, “Mom, is ‘dick*’ a word?” Well, it’s been a long time since I laughed so hard.

I hope her teacher finds it equally hilarious when he’s marking her homework this weekend.

(*Before you get all outraged, she has an Uncle named Dick, so it's not really as bad as it looks)