The Kiddie Cocktail

Midsummer nights

She's gotten too big for the portable crib. We tried a little folding camp cot, which she latched on to and loved for two nights, sleeping soundly. But the next time, she flopped around in her sleep, tumbled the short distance to the floor, and had to be rescued, carried to the safe island of the king-sized bed in the downstairs bedroom at my in-laws' house on Martha's Vineyard. There, I put my arm over her, snuggled her next to me as I'd done when she was a newborn, and she rubbed my forearm as she drifted back to sleep, her unruly curls tickling my face in the dark.

After that, I was resigned to her sleeping in our bed while we were at the Vineyard. She was delighted. I made sure to tell her that this was special, for Grandma and Grandpa's special house only, for this huge bed only, and that we wouldn't do it when we got home. At home, she gets to come into our bed in the early morning, when she wakes up at five thirty or six. I stumble down the hall to get her, and snuggle her under the covers between us. Sometimes, she cuddles and plays and chats, as we all come awake. Sometimes, she falls back asleep for some more precious minutes, maybe thirty, maybe an entire blissful hour, her warm little solid body pressed against mine. We don't have her in bed all the time, because no one really sleeps well with all of us in there all night. I always like the idea of her small warmth more than the reality of her flopping in her sleep, clutching at my arm, her hair unbearably itchy on my neck, kicking off the covers. Yet, I long to have her near me, comforting her, allowing her to fall back to sleep with such ultimate security: Mama's arms around her, Papa snoring softly on the other side of her.

It was different at the Vineyard. I don't know whether it was just that we were on vacation, and a thousand times more relaxed than we are in our regular life, or if it was that vast expanse of king-sized bed in our favorite bedroom at the house, or the sheets cooled by island air, or the sounds of water and birds drifting through the open windows. We all slept deeply, soundly, for the most part. Except when Helene would get crossways between us, like the crossbar in a capital "H" and end up kicking someone with her strong little legs and feet. I'd have to turn her 90 degrees, position her back in a place where we could all share sleep again, and there would be some wailing from the half-woken child, until I could snuggle her back under my arm again, back to dreaming.

Putting her to sleep at night was the hardest part. I couldn't just say goodnight, and leave her to fall asleep, as we do at home. She was a little afraid to be in the room alone, and I was a little afraid she'd fall out of the bed if she wasn't asleep. So every night, I laid next to her in the dark, in that great big bed, until she fell asleep. Like too many things about parenting, it was equal parts resentment and love. I just wanted her to sleep now, so I could slip away, join my husband and friends with a glass of wine in the living room, or under the stars in the hot tub. Yet at the same time, I loved helping her go to sleep, lying next to her, singing, talking, sharing in the soft summer dark.

She can talk now, really talk, about things that happened that day. About what we are going to do tomorrow. About what is right in front of us. I don't remember what we whispered about in the dark those nights. What I remember is that I suddenly had a flash of our future, of the two of us, lying in the dark, trading secrets and stories, perhaps in a tent or a cabin, or in the basement at home, just two girls whispering and giggling in the safety of darkness. Stories come out of people when you talk softly, gently in the velvet night, in ways that they would not in the starkness of daylight. And then, then, I began to savor the this time, this night, this sharing of this big, lovely bed with my daughter, realizing I wanted her always to lie next to me in the dark and tell me stories.

Instead of lying there, counting minutes, resenting, I put on my pajamas, and lay still on a midsummer's night, next to my girl, listening, laughing. I thought, we need to get a king sized bed at home, so there is more room for children. My girl murmured, and turned her head on the pillow. I touched her red-gold curls with a gentle finger, heard her breathing slow, deepen, and I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of her even breath, my arm curled over her as I did when she was first born.

 

Lessons learned

This is what I learned this weekend:

1) Do not, under any circumstances, give a small child a rather large cup of fantastic, intensely flavored, delicious, double dark chocolate gelato in the time between dinner and bedtime. You will regret it and want to call in an exorcist. Because what you might have forgotten about chocolate is that it has caffeine in it. I am sure that the lovely, intense dark chocolate gelato had, ah, more than the usual amount of caffeine than regular old chocolate ice cream. Your child weighs 27 pounds soaking wet. There could be some math involved here with grams of caffeine per pound of body weight, but it is not necessary, because res ipsa loquitor: the thing speaks for itself. Specifically, the thing ran almost all of the half mile home from the gelato shop. Then, when the thing was put to bed, it yelled, wailed, howled, begged, screeched, pleaded, thrashed, and kicked to be let out of bed. For an hour and a half. And then the thing also woke up at 1:00. 4:00 and 5:30 am, until the thing was hauled into Mama and Papa's bed in the faint hope of everyone getting more sleep.

The answer to this is obviously to administer the chocolate gelato at breakfast, when there is ample time for its effects to wear off before bed.

2) When hiding child bribery/Halloween candy, put it in a safe hiding place, where your children and husband will not find it. However, do not put it in so safe a place so that you completely out-think your own dumb-ass self, and then you cannot find the candy when it is desperately needed for life-saving bribery purposes. The same thing goes for hiding precious jewelry when going out of town. Popular places to hide such jewelry from the odd house thief are in a shoe box, or the toe of a winter boot.

The candy finally turned up stashed inside the corner cabinet tucked inside the salad spinner. The pearl necklace has not made a reappearance. I'm wondering if there are things like truffle pigs that could sniff out pearls?

3) Apples in your house are approximately 837 times larger and more numerous than they appear on the farm. Pick-your-own fruit places are fun weekend family outings. You get to be outdoors, where city children can run around a farm, pick apples, and see that they really do grow on trees and Mama was not making that crazy shit up. You're issued a basket, and you can take a wheelbarrow if you like, which is handy for hauling apple baskets, small children, etc. up and down the rows of apple trees. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, you're with good friends, the children have got the hang of this apple picking thing and are happily putting apples into baskets, and eating one here and there. You go up and down the rows, just getting a few of each kind that you want to try: Fuji, Honeycrisp, Jonagold. Your bucket doesn't look that full. You pet the farm animals, have a picnic, bag up your apples, and pay $12 for the privilege of hauling them home. You plan to make an apple pie for tonight, and imagine that will take care of a good number of the apples. When you carry the bag of apples inside, it seems much larger than it did on the farm or in the trunk of the car. The apples seem to have multiplied. Exponentially. You pick out six good looking pie candidates, and make your pie. The pie crust barely fits over the pile of apple slices in the pie pan. You wrestle the top crust into place, put it in the oven, and go back to inspect the sack of apples. It does not appear smaller since you removed six for the pie. You suspect it is actually larger. You realize that you also already had apples in the fridge, from the farmer's market, and that you are supposed to get more apples on Tuesday from your CSA.

You slice up an apple to accompany dinner. The small child refuses both the apple and the apple pie. You sigh, look up recipes for applesauce, store the apples in a cool, dark corner of the basement, and wonder if apples would go as fast as doughnuts if you put them in the kitchen at your office.

Decade

I can't believe it has been ten years since we woke up to the incomprehensible sight of a plane hitting one of the World Trade Centers in New York. It is both just yesterday, and an age ago.

My mother said today that she hoped we would be out of town, out of DC all this weekend. I couldn't figure out why, at first. I thought, there's no hurricane coming. Then I realized she was talking about this tenth anniversary of 9/11. No, Mom, sorry. We are not leaving. I refuse to be paranoid, refuse to be afraid. This is my home, and we have things to do.

I don't have anything profound to say, no story to retell. I already said my piece earlier this year, as it happens. I will spend this 9/11 as I have all the others since 2001: quietly remembering.

So, this happened

The Olive went to preschool. PRESCHOOL.

 
 
 
 
 
 
PRESCHOOL.

There have been some tears. Not an excessive amount. She is in a fantastic small Montessori program where she will get to do eighty seven thousand intellectually and physically stimulating and nurturing things. Her teacher, Ms. Lindeman, is an absolute genius child wrangler. I have seen her in action, and I am so not worthy.

It's funny. I'm all over-wrought about her being away from me all day. But, um, duh, she's ALREADY been away from me all day for two years (and how, how, how has it been that long? WTF, time??). But...but...it was at our house, with our nanny, who coddled and loved and spoiled her, and she slept in her own bed, and....Then this devolves into a bad guilt spiral of "maybe she should just go part time...she's so little....and we'll patch together some childcare....and I will quit my job and stay home with her more...and....and...and...." It's dawning on me that we are never, ever going to be able to really let go of our children, are we?

She's ready. She is. On the first full day, yesterday, she napped just fine on her own little cot with her nap mat. Yesterday, when I got her, she didn't want to leave at first because she was listening to a book. But then, it hit her full on that mama was there, and she came out sobbing for me, the relief and need just washing over her. She asks us several times, just to MAKE SURE, that Mama will come get her from school? She talks in an awed kind of voice about Ms. Lindeman, and her eyes get big, and her face lights up with expectation.

She has cried a little bit at home before she goes, and I can see she is trying not to, trying to be my big, strong brave girl as I tell her she is. She cries when she gets there, but she goes in the room, finds a book, some blocks. Ms. Lindeman told us that yesterday was her "coming out day" when she finally abandoned the book corner to explore all the other activities in the room, discovering the wider world.

But still, when I pick her up at the end of the day, she will hurl herself at me, and I will hold her, and we will end our day, going home, still needing each other.

Monday random

When all the world is a hopeless jumble, and the raindrops tumble all around, it's time do do a random blog...*

Last week, all I planned to do was wallow in post-vacation depression, procrastinate a lot, and work my way slowly up to full-blown panic at the fact that my tiny little baby is going to preschool soon (PRESCHOOL!), but, well, other things intervened.

1. The Earthquake. Holy crap, we had one! I was in my office (probably procrastinating), when there was some shaking, some rumbling. The hell? I thought. The first thing that I concluded was that there had been an explosion at a nearby construction site. We are in a "redeveloping" neighborhood, and are utterly surrounded by huge construction sites. More shaking, more rumbling, the floor actually rolling, light fixtures waving away on the ceiling like perverse flowers in a breeze. Then, the second thing I thought was BOMB. We live in DC. I work on security issues. I am an obnoxious building emergency warden. This is how I think. BOMB. And then the rumbling and shaking kept going, got stronger. I almost laughed, realizing, oh, I GET IT, it's an earthquake! An earth ride, as one of my friends from San Francisco used to call them. I was honestly relieved that it wasn't a bomb, because again, this is DC, this is how we think. Of course, I shot off a Tweet, because I am a social media whore:

@DCZia Roberta

HOLY FUCKING EARTHQUAKE IN DC. Or something. For serious.

23 Aug via web

I ditched my heels for flip flops, and grabbed my handbag, making sure I had phones, wallet & keys. I donned my orange emergency warden vest (which is in serious need of some Bedazzling) and shooed my fellow employees out the stairwell and to our evacuation rally point. Once out there, of course I turned to Twitter, which had all the best info AND kept working fine, thanks for nothing AT&T. I also realized that I had a bottle of champagne in my bag, because I'd done some errands over lunch, including a wine store stop. That's right, if you evacuate with me during a natural disaster, I bring teh interwebs AND the booze.

All kidding aside, everything was fine. I left work when The Powers That Be excused us, and scooted home. I live a mile and a half from my office, so no traffic snarls for me. The worst casualties were a very tired child (earthquake disturbed her nap) who was falling asleep in her tacos at dinner, and some crooked pictures around the house. Nothing even fell off of a shelf in our 115 year old house. Unreal.

2. The Hurricane. Like the rest of the more northerly East Coast, we were in the path of Hurricane Irene. Here is what we did to prep: (a) bought propane; (b) and beer; (c) starting drinking shortly after lunch; (d) charged up all the iDevices; (e) drank too much wine, went to bed early and slept mostly soundly, waking up a few times to marvel at the howling wind and pounding rain. That about covers it. Woke up Sunday morning to gawk at all the downed trees, and felt grateful, since it's exactly six years since Hurricane Katrina. It could have been a lot different.

3. Regularly Scheduled Panic. My wee tiny baby is somehow almost three years old and starts preschool on Thursday. PRESCHOOL. I coped by applying name labels to everything in sight, getting hysterically indecisive about which after-school activities we should register for, and drinking before 5:00 pm.

4. Death, Shock, Grieving. I found out this morning that a colleague passed away on Friday night. He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his health was not all that great, but it seemed he would stubbornly carry on for a long time to come. He succumbed to pneumonia. I am in shock. This man was like a foster dad to me at work; I'm around the age of his daughters. He was stubborn, and smart, and moody, and prickly, and generous and witty and knowledgeable all at once, and I got along with him well. I learned so much from him. We talked about everything from Jeeps to horses to guns to railroading to natural childbirth (you can't say that about every colleague). It is still that time where it seems impossible for this person to be gone, for the world to never hear his deep belly laugh again, for his office to be still and quiet and empty. My heart hurts for his family, who has lost a father, a grandfather, a husband.   

And so I start this Monday, in a random jumble, trying to just be grateful for what I have, here.

*With deep apologies to "Over the Rainbow" - the little known intro verses.

Pause

Almost out of here. Not quite an hour left of work. Then home to lists, laundry, packing, trying to eat/freeze everything in the fridge, staying up too late to organize everything, getting up too early for our flight...But then, then, we will land, and for a week we will be here:

 

Martha's Vineyard. Where I am very good at unplugging. I plan to read, nap, go to the beach, laugh, drink, eat the shit out of some lobster, and just be on vacation. Vacating. Vacant. Lazy. Lovely. And try to keep summer from slipping away so fast, try to bottle this up, save it, shimmering blue-silver summer, until next year.

Summertime rolls...

For so many reasons, this summer has been about a thousand percent more awesome than last summer. Even though it's supposed to be 100 degrees (again) tomorrow, I'm good. I can roll with it, I can still say this summer is/has been/will be amazing. If you don't want to read all these words, just go peek at my Flickr set for the summer. That does sum it right up.

 

Reason 1: My kid is at least 50% more awesome than she was last year. Last year, she was one. God, one year olds, MY GOD. They are CHOCK FULL of mobility and energy, but they don't have the sense or attention span of a rubber ball, and they sure as hell don't bounce like one, so you spend all of your time chasingchasingchasing. Up the stairs, down the stairs, outsideoutsideoutside, OMFG don't FALL down the stairs, don't run off the sidewalk into the street, not under there, not over there, don't climb that, you're going to fall....oh shit, you fell (insert blood curdling screaming). Say what you will about two, but I have liked it a hell of a lot better than one. I wouldn't go so far to say that the Olive is rational, but she sure can talk a mile a minute, and understand even more. She can and actually WILL (mostly) listen to directions. She knows not to step off the sidewalk into the street, and she won't. I can now be one of those parents that can spend some time sitting on my butt on the playground, because my kid can climb up and down and over almost everything, and I don't have to worry. I get up for the occasional assist on a ladder, or to prevent an escape (because darn it, she knows exactly how all the gates work), or to get someone to share or apologize. She also sleeps all night, can climb onto her own chair, can be trusted to play in another room by herself, and even fetch me things. I sleep! My cocktails get left unspilled! I'm living the dream.

 

Reason 2: We joined a community pool. Which makes us so totally bourgeousie, I know. I know! (Even worse: it's a pool AND racquet club. Ayup.) But I so don't care because the pool is so goddamn awesome. It is hot and humid and utterly unfit-for-humans-swamp-ass around here in the summer, and the only two sensible places to be are indoors with copious air conditioning or outdoors and up to your neck in water. We got home from vacation last Saturday night to a house full of hot air and broken A/C in 100 degree weather. I cried while Seth found a friend to house us in their basement overnight. On Sunday, we bought fans and giant containers of raspberries at Costco, and spent four hours at the pool. FOUR HOURS. I am not a pool person. I like the water just fine, but I grew up in the Southwest, where there is no water. I have the pale, freckly skin of a Northern European mutt, so I was never one for tanning. I mean, we went swimming sometimes when I was a kid, and the public pools were fine, but it wasn't what I wanted to do all the time. However, no pool I ever went to is like this pool. There's a kiddie pool, a beach entry pool, splash fountains, a big pool, diving boards, a water slide, a snack bar (with ice cream!), a playground, tennis courts, volleyball, all nestled into grassy, tree-shaded grounds. Four hours passed in a blink, and I loved every minute of it, as did the small monkey fish child. I seriously want to go to the pool every day (who the hell am I??), and I'm going to be very sad when it closes after Labor Day.

Reason 3: Multiple trips to the Vineyard. (Yes, again, I know -I am appallingly bourgeousie, and my in-laws happen to have a house on Martha's Vineyard. Look, I'm incredibly lucky. I know! I appreciate it! I swear! I'll send you a Black Dog shirt!) Last summer, we had only one trip planned, due to everyone's schedules. It was at the very end of summer, the last week of August through Labor Day. 2010 was a long fucking hot summer and a long time to wait for grandparent babysitting and entertainment in one of my favorite places. I remember sitting in my office, practically laying on my desk moping, counting down the weeks and days and hours, because I felt like it was all I had to live for when it was 100 degrees and 75% humidity outside. And then, after our trip, just like that, summer was over. I really had post-vacation depression. I declared that in 2011, we were not waiting until the end of the summer to go just once, because my mental health would not be able to take it. So far - success! We have already been twice, and have a third trip planned. The first trip was over Fourth of July weekend (which no sane person should spend in Washington more than once. It's worth it once to see the fireworks on the Mall. After that you should just flee, because it's ungodly hot and full of sweaty people in really ugly patriotic clothing, white Reeboks and fanny packs). The second trip was last week, including the double bonus feature of my brother-in-law and his family live and in person from Australia. (Despite the fact that we had four colds, two respiratory infections, and one case of Lyme disease among us, the trip was generally a success). Our third trip is in a month, and we're also importing our own playmates- friends from the neighborhood whose son is the Olive's age. I have high hopes for more fun and less pestilence.  

Reason 4: The gift of one week. I got a week without the small child, for the first time ever. The longest I'd been away from her before that was about 48 hours. In that week, I didn't cook once. I had a perfect New York City weekend with one of my best friends that I never see because she lives in San Francisco. We ate well, had cocktails with lunch, got coffee whenever we felt like it, shopped, ate some more, walked and walked and walked and walked (as one is wont to do in NY when there is perfect summer weather), had some wine, saw old friends, and talked nonstop. I had time alone, where I read a ton, watched whatever I wanted (which was like, ten episodes of Glee -so hooked now), steyed up past ten (OMFG!), and lazed in bed in the morning reading. Finally, I got two days with just my husband, for the first time since our girl was born in November 2008. More great food, more walking. We actually held hands because no one had to chase a child! We talked and laughed and drank and went to awesome hip places in our 'hood, and stayed out late. BECAUSE WE COULD. We are about 400 percent cooler without a kid, I'm afraid. Though we probably lost at least 100 percentage points of cool for being so giddy at being without our kid for a couple of days.

 
Hello, lovelies! Maya holds our tasty lunch cocktails.

Reason 5: Burgers on the grill and sliced watermelon are so easy and totally count as a complete dinner. And you can eat it outside. On paper plates! FOR THE WIN.

Reason 6: Summer clothes. There are just so very many fewer of them than in winter. It is about 300% easier to get everyone dressed in the morning. Shirt, shorts & Crocs for the child, dress & sandals for me, DONE. Somewhere in me, I am sure I still have some romantic love for winter, for the cozy sweaters and fuzzy hats, and glasses of wine by the fire. I am sure that love will re-kindle at about the time the kid can dress her own damn self, because right now? Just thinking about all those hats and mittens and boots and sweaters and snow pants and layers and bits to be wrestled into and lost just makes me want to cry. So, just pass the sunscreen and the frozen margaritas, please, and yes, I think I will just kick off my flip flops right over there and dangle my feet in the pool.

 

Wherein you may question my feminist street cred

Our nanny Yvonne is getting married on Saturday. It's kind of last minute, she admitted. She could not contain her grin or the light in her eyes. The groom is a friend from her church that she has been dating for some time. He's joining the Navy, which means he will be shipping out soon, to who knows where for who knows how long. They decided to get married before that happened. They just got the marriage license yesterday.

It was going to be a small affair, just the two of them downtown at a justice of the peace. But his mother and their church community decided they needed a bigger celebration, and everyone is chipping in to put it on for them on Saturday. They have the church, people are cooking, invites are coming by word of mouth. Yvonne invited us. 

Unfortunately, we won't be able to go, as we will be on Martha's Vineyard with Seth's family. But we will give them a thoughtful card and a check. It's our standard wedding gift. It's always the right color, the right size, everyone can always use it, and no one ever returns it.  

The happiness has made Yvonne simply alight. I am genuinely happy for her. She deserves something good in the most profound of ways. I hope and cross my fingers that this is the right thing, a great thing, and that it lasts (and lasts). "The boys are happy too!" she says, talking of her five and seven year old boys, sweet boys that the Olive adores. "That's the most important thing," we agree.

I am happy and hopeful and strangely relieved. Yvonne's life is not easy. She is a single mother of two young boys. We do the best we can by her. We pay her well, try to treat her fairly, and we try to help. We've driven her to appointments with various social welfare agencies as she tries to sort out the conundrum of procedures and benefits with surly, jaded city employees. So her children can get subsidized food, daycare, and medical care. We've referred her to the DC Bar pro bono clinic, to help her sort out a tangle of immigration and family law issues that has prevented her from taking her sons back to visit her home on the Carribbean island of St. Vincent. When Yvonne's employment with us ceases in September, we have realized that we would still do anything we could to help her, and we hope she will ask us for help if she needs it.

I have never thought that everyone "needs" to get married or "should" get married, nor do I think of marriage as an end-all, be-all solution to anything. I absolutely think that women need to know how to be independent and take care of themselves, and that they should never be 100% dependent on someone else. You just never know what is going to happen.

I know Yvonne can take care of herself and her boys; she's done it for almost all of their lives, with little to no help from their father, who lives in St. Vincent, or from other family members, because they aren't any better off than she is. I think there are times that she did not eat, but I know her boys always did. She knows how to save money, how to take advantage of social welfare programs. She's done the best she can, and it has been eye-opening to see how hard it is to be a working single mother.

Yet I am hopeful, relieved and grateful that she is getting married. There will be someone else to help her. Maybe they can move, so she can get out of that apartment where the heat seems to be perpetually on too high, and the carpet is unspeakably old and stained. If he is in the Navy, and she's his wife....the military will take care of her and her boys. It may not be the fanciest health care in the world, but the military health services are nothing to sneeze at, and can be amazingly innovative. It just means (I hope) more stability for her and her boys, more opportunity, more help, more hope. I just want her life to be easier, because she deserves it, this woman with the radiant smile that cares for our daughter and helps us every single day.

Father's Day

We still haven't scattered my father's ashes. They sit on a shelf in a closet in my mother's house, right next to the wine rack (he would have liked that), in twin copper-colored squarish metal containers, "suitable for scattering," as the funeral home guy told us. My father died suddenly, nearly six years ago, on September 18, 2005, barely two weeks before Seth and I got married.

Way back in the hot Boston summer of 1998, I was madly, frantically drowning in studying for the Massachusetts bar exam. Father's Day came and went without my notice, without my ever giving it one thought, absorbed as I was by Commercial Paper! Constitutional Law! and how I knew absolutely not one damn thing about Family Law!, let alone in Massachusetts. It wasn't until I was home for Christmas that year that my mother chastised me about forgetting Father's Day. "You can never do that again. I know he doesn't say anything, but you really hurt his feelings. He would never say anything. Just never forget Father's Day again." I was utterly shocked, taken aback. I mumbled something about the bar exam, thinking my parents really didn't understand how all-absorbing that process is. What I know now is that I didn't understand anything at all about being a parent.

I dutifully never forgot Father's Day again, knowing that it did mean something to my dad, even if I didn't understand, really, dismissing it as another Hallmark holiday. It was hard to imagine my father caring about anything like that. He never cared about clothes, or movies, or books. If it wasn't fact, he had no interest. Except for cartoons. They weren't pretending to be real, so he could love those, especially Warner Bros. and especially Wile E. Coyote. He always rooted for the coyote, even as he chuckled at his perpetual misfortunes. My father also never talked about anything so slippery as feeeelings, my god no. Such a thing would simply be impossible. I knew when he was mad, because the word "apoplectic" was made for my dad, as he turned red with anger, barely able to speak, and yeah, I was grounded for the rest of my life. I knew when he was proud of me, because he just beamed, his wide grin irrepressible. But anything more subtle would be merely a guess on anyone's part.

My father was the most pragmatic of pragmatists, and it extended to death. "If they'd let you, I'd tell you to just leave my body out in the woods for the animals." He was a wildlife biologist by trade, a hunter and fisherman and outdoorsman since he could walk. I don't think he believed in gods or a God, but he revered and respected the inevitable power of nature. The mountain ranges of New Mexico, the high desert grasslands, the muddy braids of southwest rivers, those were his church and chapel. Once you were dead, that was it, just a body, and you should be put to good use feeding animals and soil, the cycle of nature. He did like the idea of reincarnation, because he'd want to be a bird of prey, a hawk or an eagle, sharp-eyed, soaring.

What we didn't have in words, we had in actions. Hours we spent together on horseback, in all weather, in the days of fewer fences, traversing the high pinon plateaus and canyons around Santa Fe. He'd tell me the name of every shrub and cactus and bird, open rusty gates with his Game & Fish keys and my grandfather's old railroad keys, and make me lead the way home so I would never be lost.

We knew my father wanted to be cremated. A coffin, a cemetary, a headstone felt like a waste of time and space and money to him, just for a discarded shell. We never wanted to put him in an urn on a mantel. It would be like caging one of those birds of prey he loved so much; there would be no point to it. My father was happiest outdoors, roaming, getting dirty, spotting wildlife, marveling in the wilderness and the ever-changing sky. He had tales from his boyhood in Albuquerque that were astonishing: of floating the flood-stage Rio Grande on some homemade, ramshackle raft; of hunting before school and being kicked out for smelling like skunk; of roaming the Sandia foothills with an endless string of pet dogs with sturdy names like "Ol' Blackie" and "Ol' Rascal."

I felt strongly that I had to return him to New Mexico, to the place of his birth, where he lived for most of his life, to the rocks and trees and sky. My mother thought she might want to scatter some ashes at a deep blue mountain lake in Idaho, where they went fishing often, and close to where they'd lived outside of Boise since 2000. So, at one of those surreal junctures of life, where you just cannot believe you are doing this horrible thing, we selected two containers for his ashes at the funeral home. They cost an appalling amount. We did briefly consider five-pound coffee cans, a la The Big Lebowski. My father would have approved; it would have been practical, and cheap. He would have rolled his eyes at the fuss we did make - a military color guard, a short memorial service. I didn't know how to get his body illegally out into the wilderness, Edward Abbey-style, so I settled for ashes to scatter.

We still haven't scattered my father's ashes. Life has intervened, with weddings and plans and travel and babies and work, and it has been hard to find the time, arrange the logistics, to get both me and my father's ashes to New Mexico. Do I fly up to Idaho and get them? Fed Ex them? Can you do that? I don't even know. When I think about his ashes, unscattered, I get very anxious, because I want to return him home, to the state where he was born, to the wilderness he loved. But I don't think about it that often, and there his ashes still sit, in the dark cool of the closet.

On Sunday, Father's Day, it seemed that all of my friends were posting these lovely, funny, sentimental and heartfelt words about their fathers and husbands, and I kind of wanted to. But I also didn't, and couldn't, because it aches that he is missing, and that my beautiful daughter will never know him, but for photographs and stories. I didn't want to publicize that pain. Her birthday falls just four days after his, both Scorpios. She is like him, in her stubbornnes, her curiosity. On Sunday, I listened to her screams of laughter, as she did a video chat with Seth's parents, and I am always so grateful for these other two wonderful fathers that we have in our lives. But I still want to say "it's not fair" like a small child when Grandpa Bob can only exist in a photo.

Nearly six years ago, when we got the proofs of our wedding photos back, I looked and them and sobbed. About how they weren't good enough, about how I should have had the photographer take photos of me and my bridesmaids on the lawn, not in the house, about how I wanted something different. I cried about those photos for days. Of course, it wasn't about the photos. They were stunning, gorgeous, amazing. It was about what was missing, about what could not be in them: my father. Our wedding was perfect; it really was. Yet forever, and always, when I remember that amazing day, there is always a shadow of sadness that takes me by surprise, and I furrow my brow until I remember. My dad. He was supposed to be there, and he wasn't.

I struggle with how to bring him to life for Helene. She is still little now; and can only point to a photo and say it's Grandpa Bob, without really understanding who he is and how he fits into our lives. Like my father, I want things to be useful, have purpose. Those ashes are still on that shelf because I haven't figured it out yet. Helene hasn't been to New Mexico, to the place of my father's birth, the place of my birth. In my head, I see us, she and I, hiking somewhere in the northern New Mexico wilderness. I have a backpack on, my father's ashes inside, perhaps in a five-pound coffee can. I hear myself telling her stories as we walk, all about my father, as we look for the right place, deep in the mountains, under an endless expanse of sky.

Not winning, exactly

I should be WINNING, in the parlance of our Charlie Sheen times. It's summer. We became bourgeousie and joined a pool in the 'burbs for the season. The Olive, The Child, The Girl, has really been quite wonderful in this Year Of Being Two, and we actually want to interact with her and play with her and take her places. My job is not particularly stressful. But the last several weeks have been exhausting, and I'm just not quite on whatever is left of my game.

It started out back in March with that godawful stomach flu that felled all three of us, one by one. It kicked my ass the hardest; I didn't feel right for a week. I was still feeling old dishrag-like, when the Olive got a cold, which I seemed to have fended off. Then I was feeling fatigued and dizzy and lightheaded to boot, and thought, geez, I just can't kick these viruses, or maybe it's the pollen. I ate a lot of yogurt. Made sure to take my vitamins. Went to bed at embarassingly early hours. Dragged myself to the gym and out to run, because that usually makes me feel better. It wasn't until I took a closer look at the small print on a prescription from my dermatologist that I figured out it was the stupid medication that was probably making me feel awful. Lightheaded? Muscle aches? Fatigue? Muscle weakness? CHECK ALL OF THE ABOVE. Stop taking it, call your doctor. 48 hours later, I was vastly improved and didn't feel like lying on my office floor anymore. It didn't last, because there was more pollen, another round of colds for everyone (with a side of non-sleep), a visit from my mom, and GAH. More early bedtimes, apologizing to everyone for my lameness. A few days of feeling pretty good, trying to get back into the swing of running. Things are looking up!

And then today. Bad sleep, vague stomach uneasiness and tiredness this morning, that just hasn't really let up. I was thinking about calling Seth's fancy no-insurance internist for a total-body workup, when I recalled I'd been to the midwives last week. I went in for a Depo shot, and came out with a Pill prescription, because a return to fertility comes more quickly after stopping the Pill than with Depo, and well, I'm 38, and if we start trying, it had better be quick. Once again, ding ding ding! Prescription meds! How they can fuck you up, even if they never did before! Hormones, whee! Gonna give it a couple of weeks, and hope my body can get used to the hormones again after ALMOST FOUR YEARS of not being on the Pill (after a solid 17 years of being on the Pill).

Meanwhile, self-medicating with Arnold Palmers and Cheetos, because that's what looked good at the CVS, and Fuck This Noise. I know, I'm whiny, but I'm normally annoyingly healthy and energetic, and it's hard to feel at all bad when you're just used to feeling really good.

Come on, WINNING. I need my game back, people.