The Kiddie Cocktail

Three

You just nod and smile when parents tell you, "It goes so fast." You don't understand until you are here, when you can't believe that it has been three years. It has been three years* since I met you, my beautiful girl, my lovely. It's passed in a blink. Yet, when I look at photos of you as an infant, it seems impossible that such a tiny thing is you. You were the sun of my world then; I had no idea how much brighter you would shine. 

Everyone notices your hair, your magnificent mop of strawberry blond curls. Your hair seems to strike something deep, and people come over to talk to you, to tell us stories about a brother or sister or daughter who had hair just like that, and how amazing it is. I try to tame it into softness each morning, as you screech with every pull at every snarl, but it's a wild tangle at the end of the day; you are too busy for it to stay perfect. It mirrors your energy, your verve, your liveliness. I will be sad the day that you discover the blowout. 

You are somehow old enough to be in preschool (PRESCHOOL!), thriving. Your teacher tells us that your smiley, bubbly personality that lights up the room. That the other children gravitate towards you, attracted by your energy, and by your penchant to be silly whenever someone else is. One of your new friends is Clara, who is quiet, and who you seek out in class, asking her to do things with you. You are a leader, an instigator. Ms. Lindeman tells us that you are also a peacemaker, that you try to mediate disputes among your classmates. I wish I could be a fly on the wall of your classroom, to see all of these facets, to see you bloom, and marvel at you. 

Your Year of Age Two has been mostly lovely. We converse, we play, we imagine, we run, we wonder, together. You have left almost every shade of babyness behind, you are truly a Little Girl now. Sometimes, I try to encourage you to be a Big Girl, but I also think, not too fast, Little Girl, not too fast. 

As you've come closer to Three, your ideas, your fears, your angers, and your joys have also grown bigger and brighter. You aggravate, exasperate, amuse us, and dazzle us in turns, minute by mercurial minute. We have tidal waves of tantrum, where there used to be none, over the smallest things - pajamas, a cup. You want so much to do everything yourself, even the things I am sure you cannot do. Sometimes, you prove me wrong, and then I am humbled and proud. 

Right now, your favorite things are: chocolate milk, lollipops, popcorn, Cars 2, fuzzy winter pajamas, macaroni, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, your polka dot shoes, any pair of pink pants, your ladybug rain boots, your teacher, your friends Luke and Rome and Clara and Nia, running down the sidewalk full-tilt, climbing anything that can be climbed (and many things that should not be climbed), eating Cheerios with milk, riding piggyback on Mama, riding to school on the back of Papa's bicycle, painting, Play Doh, and pouring water (or anything else you are allowed to pour), helping Mama make smoothies and coffee in the mornings. 

Your least favorite thing is to have to stop doing anything that you are engrossed in for any reason, unless you are very, very hungry. Or unless a trip across the street to the dry cleaner is involved, where the doting Korean owners unfailingly admire you and give you stickers. 

Some things are the same. How you will go and go and go and go and GO until we slow you down, insist that it is time to sleep. Your laughter, easily brought to the surface with some light tickling, a funny face, a chase. When I look back at old photos and videos, I realize how essentially YOU that you were, even then, even at less than one year old. Your smile, your laugh, are so astonishingly unchanged.

As always, you are ever more you, ever so much more so. I can't believe how much I want to be with you. Most of the time. There are many days I am grateful to ship you off to school, where they can funnel your energy, stimulate you, teach you, without butting up against the tears and fury that you seem to save especially for me. I know it's because you can let your guard down with me and feel safe with all of those emotions, so big in your tiny body. Some days, it is hard.

Then on other days, the big emotions are positive, where you just say, out of the blue, "I love you soooo much, Mama!" I die. I melt. I am yours. My big, big (little) girl. The happiest of days, of years, of lives to you.

 

*Let's all pretend it's actually Novemeber 19, and that I got this posted on my girl's birthday.

Halloween magic

As a kid, Halloween was one of those holidays that we lived for. The air was chilly and crisp, the decorations went up, we spent too much time trying to scare the living daylights out of each other and ourselves with scary stories and cobweb decorations and bloody monster masks. I could dress up as anything I wanted, be anything I wanted. The rules were suspended, and we got to wander around the neighborhood after dark, stay up late, ask friends and strangers for all the candy we could carry in our bags, and eat Hershey bars and Smarties for dinner.

I feel the same kind of anticipation and excitement now that Helene is old enough to understand some of the specialness of Halloween. I knew that I wouldn't get to choose her costume any more - my girl has her opinions now. So when I first asked her, a couple of months ago, what she wanted to be, she said, "witch!" She'd been a witch last year, and we had books about witches. I suggested other things: she could be a cowgirl like Jessie in Toy Story, a pirate, or an astronaut. She could be anything. No, a witch, she kept saying. I enlisted my mom's help on a costume; she bought one, e-mailed me a photo, and I showed it to Helene. "Do you like the witch costume that Grandma found for you?" "I want to be a ghost. YOU can be a witch." No matter how many times I asked, she insisted that she wanted to be a ghost. I showed her pictures of Halloween ghosts in story books, and ghost decorations, and each time she said, yes, she wanted to be a ghost, like that. My mom bailed us out again, made her a ghost costume, a sleeveless white tunic, and a white hood, with a gas-station style nametag that said "GHOST" in case it was not obvious.

Over October, we carved three different jack o'lanterns, visited two pumpkin patches, and bought numerous small and large pumpkins and gourds for decorations. Enamored with the pumpkins, Helene would insist on bringing some of them into the house from the front steps almost every time we came home. She saw little ghost lights at a neighbor's house, and my mom bought some for her. We carved the final jack o'lantern, hung all the lights, and arranged the pumpkins on the front steps.

Yesterday, Halloween morning, Helene kept asking "Is it Halloween? Is it Halloween?" Yes it is, sweetheart. But you have to wait until after school to wear your costume. "There's my ghost costume!" she said excitedly.

Seth went to pick her up at school. He texted me: "Warning! She says she wants to be a witch." Well, kid, it's a good thing that your mama and Grandma Wanda think of these things, because there just happens to be an emergency backup witch costume in your size hanging in the basement. Apparently, she was quite upset at any suggestion that she be a ghost. What changed her mind so completely, I will never know.

She seemed tired and a bit listless when I got home. We made sure she had a snack, to stave off hunger or candy-induced mania, and then tried to get her ready to trick or treat. Suddenly, she didn't want to go. She wanted to open the orange Play Doh instead. And I found myself threatening my child that we were about to go trick or treating without her, actually having to CONVINCE her to GO GET LOADS OF CANDY FROM PEOPLE. Enough mentions of candy seemed to do the trick, and we costumed her up, and set out for a trip around the block.

Last year, her first year, it was pretty magical. We went early, on a sunny and warm evening, with two other kids of the same vintage. They did it all themselves, climbing the steps, knocking on the doors, even saying thank you. She wore her costume, including the hat, the entire time. She walked almost the whole way herself, clutching her hard-earned candy bag.

This year, I think she was a bit tired. She kept asking to be carried, didn't want to go up all of the stairs. When her jack o'lantern treat bucket banged on each wrought iron step, she would cry out "OW!" on the pumpkin's battered behalf. We didn't make plans to go with any other kids, so there was no one to egg her on. Her imagination has also grown, and she finds things scary now that she didn't before. She was not prepared for adults in costumes, the pirates and soldiers and Cruella deVilles and witches that we saw around the block. We had to walk with her up to all of the houses. We made our circuit of the block, and she was done, asked to go home.

I remembered that our neighbor across the street had specifically told us to come by. She's older, and I knew she'd lived in that house for a long time. She didn't have any decorations up, but was ready for us with a big bowl of candy. She gave Helene more candy than strictly necessary, and we started to talk. She told me how much she loves children, and seeing them in the neighborhood. She's lived in that house since she was eight years old, inherited it from her parents. Seth and Helene wandered off, but I kept talking. She wants to have all the kids over when the weather gets warm again, make ice cream in the back yard. I told her that sounded amazing. She told me (to my surprise) that there used to be a streetcar on our street, and she used to take it up to the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood.  She told me how the block used to be, with so many families and children, all over at each other's houses. And then there were some bad times, when people moved away, and there was crime, and no children. "But now, I get to see it a second time, all the children in the neighborhood," she said, as we watched groups of costumed kids laughing in the coming twilight. I could have talked to her forever, listening to the stories and the history of my street. I told her that I hoped we would talk again soon.

We headed home, turned on our lights and decorations, took off Helene's costume, turned up some Halloween tunes and got ready to hand out candy. We let Helene eat a fair amount of candy, but not too much. Then, the knocks came at the door, and handing out candy turned out to be the hit of the night. She wanted to hold the bowl, and dole out candy carefully into each waiting bag. We ended up sitting out on the front steps with glasses of wine, waiting for more kids to climb the steps. "What is she? What is he?" Helene asked of each costume, as she hand-picked special candy for each fireman, Wolverine, train engineer, Green Lantern, butterfly and princess. She delighted in looking at the costumes, at giving the candy out, at saying "Happy Halloween!"

Finally she started to fade, getting clumsy and weepy and indecisive with exhaustion, and we knew we had to turn out the lights and lock the door, because she would not let us hand out candy without her. She was sound asleep before I finished singing to her.

It wasn't what I'd imagined for her third Halloween. I thought she would be more interested in trick or treating. I wanted it to be as charming and new as it was last year. But the truth is that she wore her costume for less than an hour, that she had an unsightly fat lip and scrape on her chin from a fall on Sunday, that trick or treating was not the highlight, that we should have gone earlier when there was more light, that we should have gone with some other kids, and that she was a little scared by the whole thing. As a parent, it's hard to lower your expectations sometimes, and to not want so much for your kid's childhood to be exactly like yours, or exactly like some perfect imagining, because it's not going to be. It's hard to open up, and experience that magic that you're seeking in some other way than what you're looking for.

We had some moments last night that still give me high hopes for future magical Halloweens. We sat on our front porch and talked to all of our neighbors that came by, people that we got to know just a little bit better last night. Helene continued to be entranced by our lights and jack o'lanterns glowing in the cool October night, going down the steps periodically to examine them. The streetlamp across from us flickered eerily on and off, lending instant spookiness to the trickling parade of trick or treaters down our street. I got to know one special neighbor better, a piece of living history. And Helene delighted in making other kids happy giving them those tantalizing sweets in shiny foil packages, our porch light transforming them into mysterious, sparkling treasure, for just this one magic night.

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.

 

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.

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.

 

2.5 - postscript

After all that enraptured mother-child stuff yesterday, I thought I'd better round out the picture some more.

1. I woke up this morning with a wad of pink Mardi Gras beads digging into my back. I have no idea how they got in my bed.

2. When I tell the Olive things like "it's bathtime!" or "it's time to get into bed," she just says "no, it's not." Somehow, I find myself going back and forth with her several times -  "yes, it is," "no, it's not" - before I come to my senses, recall that I'M THE ADULT HERE AND BIGGER THAN YOU, and simply pick all 27 pounds of her up and put her where she is supposed to go. I don't even know where she learned this "no, it's not" business. I blame the other children. All of them.

3. I was awakened at 2 am last night and summoned to The Child's bedroom so that she could tell me she did not, under any circumstances, want the foam basketball in her bed. This is the same foam basketball that she has insisted on having in her bed for the previous week. I removed the offending foam basketball from the bed, because apparently, THIS HAD TO BE RESOLVED AT 2AM OR ELSE. I was then informed she needed her tennis ball instead. Fortunately, the tennis ball was already in the bed (because, OMFG, if it hadn't been....I shudder), lying by her pillow, and was easily located and tucked into the crook of the Olive's arm, where she hugged it and squeezed it and called it Wilson, and went happily back to sleep. On the other hand, I laid awake for god knows how long, and then had weird dreams about hunting Nerf balls like Easter eggs.

4. I tried to find lip gloss in my purse this morning but came up with only half of a crayon. It didn't even have the courtesy to be red.

And this is what we do.

2.5 - the state of the toddler nation

Some things just kill me, melt me. The way you get excited about certain foods, the way you say the words: "WICE! (for some reason, the way your little voice plaintively says "rice" just knocks me dead). Noodles! (which refers to everything from lo mein to bow ties)" Sometimes I have to keep you out of the kitchen, because you just demand everything you see "I want a BUh-NA-naaa! I want a orange! I want DINNER!" You are busy, busy, busy, and you forget that you are hungry until you come inside and those two minutes before I can get dinner on your plate are eternal, because you suddenly realize you are RAVENOUS and that you need to eat everything in sight! Right now! And you are going to lose your shit if you don't get some goddamn blackberries RIGHT THIS SECOND! As soon as there is food in front of you, it's shoveled in, the favorite bits first, then the hand hovering carefully over everything else, touching the sweet potato, but moving in favor of the chicken sausage.

You've been eating like crazy the last few weeks, with gusto and vigor, perhaps making up for when you were sick with that stomach bug and then with a cold. The quantities of clementines, berries, pasta, sausage, bread, waffles - they just astound me. Or maybe it's because you are outside practically every waking hour, if the weather is decent. Now that it is spring, now that the light lasts, you are out the door like a shot as soon as I get home from work. It doesn't matter that you and Yvonne just came from the park a bare minute ago. "Outside! I want to go outside! Mama, come outside! Don't you want to come outside?" I can't get upstairs fast enough for you, to strip off my work clothes, and find some shorts and sneakers so I can chase you down the street.

When we must stay indoors, you are an expert with the iPad. You know how to do things on it that I don't. You can find your shows on Netflix and Sesame Street on YouTube, and your games. Sometimes you need help, and then you cry for it impatiently, desperately - "HELP! HELP!" and OMFG, we can't get over there FAST ENOUGH to fix the glitch or find the Dora episode with the Bouncing Ball. Even then, you aren't often still. You practice your gymnastics moves, hands on the coffee table where the iPad is, feet on the sofa, body in plank position over the gap. The few still times often come in the morning, when only the two of us are awake, and you ask me to sit next to you. I cup my coffee in one hand, wrap my other arm around you, and bury my nose in the linen-sun-lily fragrance of your wild curls.

 

Patience is not your strong suit. Damn it, you are just like me.

Dresses have become utterly out of the question. Back in March, I could put a dress on you, and you would wear it. Now, no matter how many days in advance I introduce the dress, talk about it, or how many times you say you want to wear it....no dice. I get it over your head, and you realize it hangs below your knees, that your free-range running and climbing might be impeded and "OFF! DON'T WANT IT!" I barely talked you into a flowy tunic the other day, and called it a victory.

You do like to accessorize, though. Hats, shoes, beads and sunglasses are all carefully selected and put on at your whim, even if it is a knit cloche on a 75-degree day. Hey, you have to suffer for fashion, baby. You adore your ladybug rainboots, even if I couldn't find them in a size quite small enough for your tiny feet. You pull them on, clomp around, fall out of them, try it again.

A girly-girl you are not, so far. You give as much attention to trains and fire engines as to your doll stroller and doll houses. You will wear play beads and carry around a rubber ball. You choose your airplane pajamas as often as the ones with butterflies. You seem to have an affinity for pirates and astronauts. Yet you want to be sure that lost baby animals on TV or crying children on the playground find their mamas. You endlessly collect sticks and rocks as we walk down the block, down the alley, through the park. They are handed off to me, hidden in a bush, dropped down manhole covers, and then briefly mourned until another is found. Small rocks have to find big rocks to be their mamas and papas, and then, all is well.

You don't miss a thing. If you say that you see an airplane or the moon or the cardinal that's been living in our neighbor's tree, I believe you, because you are always right, and it is another second or two before my eyes can catch up.

I see your bravery and daring and confidence grow and I think perhaps I should start making you wear a helmet all the time. At gymnastics, you jump off of the end of the big balance beam into the big foam pit - it's HIGH. And then you want to do it again, and again, and again. You shocked us the other day by clearing three big cement steps at an old school down the street, all in one springing downward broad jump. You nailed the landing. And did it again. You cause other parents at the playground to gasp and run to rescue you, because they don't know and can't believe how far you can jump, how high you can climb.

You still can't quite reach the pedals on your tricycle.

The changes during this third (!) year of your life are not so dramatic and rapid-fire as they were during the first year and a half. They are subtler, but grander. I look back at how you were one year ago, and really, you are much the same, but even more so. Bigger! Better! Faster! More! You are still active, goinggoingoing until we make you stop. You still want to climb and explore nonstop, and still narrate everything. It's just all ever so much more so - your legs are longer and stronger; you can jump so much higher and further; climb up all the slides on all the playgrounds; run so much faster; talk ever so much more with so many words and imaginings tumbling out of your mouth. I must keep better track of the astonishing things that you say, that make us shake our heads, and smile and laugh so hard. All of your opinions are strong; you are never lukewarm on anything.

Is it possible that I can love you more? Is it possible that my love for you has grown bigger just as you have grown bigger? You are still a little thing, by the growth charts. But I watch your legs drape and dangle when I hold you, and I marvel at the time that the whole of you was just barely longer than your thighbone is now. It is simply not possible that you were once that small.

Even as you tire me out with your perpetual motion, you win me with your enthusiasm, and I am both relieved and sad when I put you to bed and lose your energetic company at the end of the day. I crave you, like the most savory dish. I must inhale you, like the scent of rain. You console my early morning when you snuggle in my bed and sometimes doze off for a little while, in a rare moment of stillness. I tell you how beautiful you are, kiss you, a hundred times a day, if I can. You are the best gift of my every day.

The sweet indulgence of ordinary days

Even though this is my third(!!) one, Mother's Day sneaks up on me. I forget that I'm one of those mother-type people now, too. So I didn't have any great expectations about Mother's Day, and we didn't make any big plans.

I could not have asked for anything more out of my weekend and my Mother's Day. We had amazing weather, to start with. Sunny and 70+ all weekend, with a few spring showers just at the end of dinner last night. I'm a fragile desert flower; sun makes me beyond happy. The small child was uncommonly pleasant all weekend long. Seriously delightful (except perhaps when trying to get her to nap).

Saturday brought me a toddler-free morning- errands without one in tow are sheer bliss. I was able to find everything I needed for my planned gardening at our awesome neighborhood hardware and garden stores, sparing me a much-dreaded trip to a big box store. (Home Depot just makes me cry. It does.) On a whim, I threw some wee garden tools for the Olive into my basket. On another whim, I stopped into a new coffee house for cappucino and a croissant. Just because I felt like it; and it felt so indulgent - me, alone, just sitting, for no reason other than that I felt like it.

I got home right after Seth and the Olive, and we went right to work gardening. She loved it. Loved it! For the first time, she really, truly helped instead of just "helped." I got her to fill a bucket with potting soil over and over, and bring it to me to put on newly transplanted day lilies. She helped me scratch up the dirt to prep it for sinking new stepping stones. She took her own watering can and watered all of the new plants. She was enamoured with every worm that I dug up and then sent wriggling back into the dark, rich loam, and we had to dig a few extra holes to look for more worms. I've dreamt of this day, when I could be out there with her, working, laughing and getting dirty.

 
 

We broke for lunch, attempted a nap (fail!), and then headed out to a first birthday party for the daughter of friends we don't get to see very often (win!). It was one of those fantastic parties, where you have a great time from beginning to end, where you feel gregarious and witty and meet new people, where you realize your kid is old enough to run around with a lot less supervision, where you just sit outside with a drink in your hand for hours, and talk and laugh. My only error was a failed execution of the proper water-to-food-to-wine ratio, which left me a leetle smidge more tipsy than I wanted to be, and gave me a bad night's sleep.

The Olive made up for it, though. She slept until past 7:15 on Mother's Day morning. This is utterly unheard of. She's usually up and talking a million miles an hour by 6:15; I'm usually awake before that, waiting to hear her wake and call me. For the first time in years, I got to lie in bed and read before anyone else was awake, one of my favorite indulgent pleasures.

But by 7:40, we were outside in our pajamas, on another beautiful day. I got some coffee for my wine-muddled head, the Olive and I searched the car for her missing shoe (found!) and my iPhone (found, but at my friend's house in Maryland from the night before. Oops.), drew with chalk on the deck, shared a banana, and pondered the rest of our day.

We ended up having a casual breakfast at Pound, the new coffeehouse I'd been to on Saturday. Their patio was surprisingly deserted, so we had it all to ourselves to share egg and cheese paninis, sip espresso, climb on and off the metal benches a hundred times, and watch the birds and squirrels in the tree canopy above us. Next, a trip to a favorite playground in hopes of encouraging an afternoon nap. The Olive can climb up the ramp of the slide by herself now, a trick she's been wanting to master since she could walk, watching the big kids and trying it over and over again. There was also plenty of running and jumping, because dang, that kid can run. Fast, and often.

 

Our next stop was Eastern Market, where my girl picked out a bouquet of pink snapdragons for me. She picked them for the color; what she doesn't know is that they look like the ones my mother used to grow in our garden in Santa Fe. A little grocery shopping for the week, some tastes of apple at the farmer's market, and back home for lunch. I got the patio umbrella out, brought the food outside, so we didn't have to go inside just yet.

That one glass of wine too many caught up to me at naptime, and Seth got the Olive to sleep by taking her for a ride in the car, then eased her back into the house and into her bed, while I got to lounge in bed and try to doze for a couple of hours. It was enough so that I was ready again for my girl when she woke from her nap and called for me. We had snacks, played with Play Doh, then (of course) back outside again for more digging and gardening, and some wandering around the block to pick up every stick. We had the luxury of nowhere to be and nothing to do, because my husband was cooking me dinner. I love to cook, but it wears on you when you do it all the time, and you have to feed small people who cannot wait to eat at 8:30 pm and would prefer macaroni to blanquette de veau. Having someone else (anyone!) cook a meal for me feels like the ultimate indulgence these days.

We ate outside again, drinking in the weather and the cool white wine, watching the Olive slurp spaghetti, taste the veal piccatta, shovel in creamed spinach (!), and eat her body weight in watermelon. It started to rain just at the end of dinner, but we stayed out there anyhow, under the umbrella, getting just a little damp in the passing showers. I got to play with my girl some more, and then break the news to her that our lovely day was over, and it was time to go upstairs for bath and bed.

I am always both a little relieved and a little sad when I have put my girl to bed at the end of the day. Relieved, because man, she's two and can be quite exhausting; but sad, because I miss her company. The sadness is always more pronounced on a Sunday night, because the weekend and my time of having her greedily to myself is over. The working day looms.

Exhausted, but satisfied, I went to bed and put off the reality of Sunday night with one more indulgence: my new Kindle. Holy shit, my husband (and daughter, nominally) got me a KINDLE for Mother's Day. The big Kindle, with the 9.75 inch screen and the 3G. I still can't believe it. We just did an iPad hand-me-down - Seth's mom got a new one, she gave Seth her old one, and I got Seth's. I was chugging along quite happily with the Kindle app. Even if I did covet the non-reflective, high-contrast, real book look of the Kindle, I was only going to drool at them online and not actually buy one.

 

You know why he said he got it for me? "Because you like to sit outside on the deck at Martha's Vineyard and read. And you can't read with the iPad outside. I know how much you like to do that." I still don't know what to say, and I haven't thanked him enough. I am grateful and humbled for this sweet man who somehow loves me so, in all my prickly and temperamental glory.

The Kindle is, of course, AMAZING (3,500 books! In my hand!). But the best gift this weekend was simply time. Just enough time to myself. Relaxed time with all three of us. Easy, easy lovely time with my girl. Who is ever more fun to be, as we talk and truly do things together now. The ordinary indulgence of time - there is never enough.

Only one?

How do you know if you want another child? This keeps going around and around and around in my head. Where it stops, nobody knows. Not yet. I don't even know why I don't know the answer.  I've been thinking on this topic a lot, for a long time. This post from motherbumper brought it bubbling up to the surface again. I've started blog posts on this, on the computer and in my head, many of them, over and over. But I haven't published them until now.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when I was young and brash and thought I could plan everything, I was pretty sure I would have more than one. I would also be married before thirty, squeeze out at least one of thost babies before thirty, and be happily ensconsed in a leafy and pricey Washington, DC suburb with good public schools, the wife of a well-paid corporate lawyer. And that is how it would all be done.

Of course it wasn't. I got married instead at the ripe old age of 32, to someone else entirely. Then, I needed some time to travel the world with my husband, adventure, eat, drink, run a marathon. I just wasn't ready. Even though I didn't really know how profoundly having a child would change my life, I knew it would change it enough so we couldn't jet off to Thailand when we wanted to, and I couldn't spend three or four hours training for a marathon every weekend. I wanted to be good and goddamn READY.

And I was. I ran my marathon, went off the Pill, and serendipitously got pregnant within 3 months, at the "advanced maternal age" of 35. The thing is, I remember people asking me how many children I planned to have even while I was still pregnant with the first one. I just smiled, and said, that we'd see how it goes with one. Maybe it is my advanced age, but as your friends start having babies, it's just not that easy. The wrenching stories of infertility and miscarriage and preeclampsia and late-term fetal death and premature labor and disabilities pile up, and you know you can't take the birth of your one precious baby for granted. It just might not be that easy. And the birth wasn't that easy, not what I had hoped for or wanted. But she was healthy and perfect; though I felt violated and battered.

Then, there comes the sleep deprivation, the fact that you are ON DUTY 24-7, there is the juggling of that nagging day job that pays the bills with your parenting job, which may require your attention all night long. There are all the moments that you realize you don' t know what the hell you are doing, and you cry, and the fact that your child doesn't sleep all night until she is finally 20 months old. You are a mediocre employee, a semi-wretched mother, a bad and surly wife, a sleep-deprived screeching fishwife, impatient, stretched too thin, with barely a half-hour to yourself, alone, each day. If you are lucky. You are absorbed by laundry and meals and groceries and paying the nanny and finding socks and toys and some coffee and getting the right dose of Tylenol at 3:00 am, and still going to work the next day, feeling your daughter's cold invading your own body, scratching at your throat. You think, I'm such a crap-ass mother to just one kid right now...what the hell would I do with another one?

Meanwhile, all of your mama friends in the neighborhood betray you. They gang up on you. They all get pregnant again. They all fall, one by one. Bethany and Jennifer, then Rebecca and Emily and Suzanne, and Stuart and Shannon. Every. Last. One. Some of them have their second before their first one (that one that you shared with them, the one the same age as yours) is even two. You can't imagine. Well, you can imagine, and that's what scares you. A toddler howling at your feet to be held while you are clutching a hungry newborn. Nursing the infant every two hours, while your two-year old wakes twice a night from cutting molars. You think, I'd go crazy if I had an infant right now. I am practically crazy as it is, I barely have this routine, this life in hand.

Your pregnant friends, they comment on it, they ask you at the playground one day. So when are you going to have another one? Look at your daughter with that baby, wouldn't she be a great big sister? You just say, "Oh, we were never sure that we wanted more than one. We still don't know." It's the truth, and you don't think it's a big deal, but your friends seem shocked into silence, and they don't say anything more.

You start to wonder if something is wrong with you. Why don't you know? Why aren't you certain? Why aren't you like them, happily having a second baby, no matter the sleep deprivation, or the mental toll, or the size of the house, or the financial burden of double childcare costs? Are you being selfish? You think of all the people you know who have had this choice made for them, because of infertility, chronic illness, nightmarish pregnancies and births, premature babies, these agonies that they cannot physically or emotionally or financially go through again to have another child. You think of what some of your friends have gone through to have a second. The miscarriages, the finances, nine months of debilitating nausea (again), the surgeries, the IVF, the monitoring, the medications. You had nothing that bad. You got pregnant easily, had a pretty easy pregnancy, you had a fast, easy labor, but a freak flipped-breech baby. You are healthy. You could most likely have a VBAC this time around. You're considered "rich" by most standards; you could afford it. God, you must be selfish, when you might have another so easily by comparison.

Age is creeping up on you. Thirty-fucking-eight is right around the corner. Those media-hyped piles of statistics and shit about declining fertility. Your worries about whether your daughter should have a sibling. You don't really know, because your half-sister is thirteen years older, always barely present in your life, more like a distant cousin. You were basically an only child. Your husband has an older brother, but doesn't feel strongly about having another baby. He said, some months ago, that he wasn't ready for a second, because your first, your Olive, your preshus, is pretty intense. You don't know if he's changed his mind. You're utterly afraid to talk about it, afraid that some decision will have to be made. You wish you were six years younger.

The Olive's outgrown clothes and toys pile up in her closet in boxes, saved for some moment in time when a decision is made. You can't get rid of any of them, not yet. She still needs you so much, your girl. She needs to be held and comforted, and it takes everything you have, some nights, to get it all done in the dinner-bath-bed rush, and you can't imagine how you would do it with two of them. Some nights, you go to bed right after she does, because you have nothing left. Could you find something, anything, for a second child? And your sweet husband, already shuffled off to third place, what happens to him, to your marriage?

Yet. Yet. You don't want to regret anything, leave anything untried, undone. You already know in your head how the study would have to be renovated to turn it into another actual bedroom, and where the furniture would be placed. You wonder where all the books would go, but you have ideas. You think about your friends' kids, playing together, entertaining each other, knowing each other as only siblings can. You wish you knew what that felt like, so maybe you'd know if your daughter needs it, that sibling.

But you didn't like being pregnant, not at all. Didn't like nursing all that much either, even though you did it for nearly two years. You think about the agony of going through all of that again, all that discomfort, inconvenience. And more years of double-disrupted sleep, and teething and chasing and toddlers and baffling tantrums.

Sometimes, you feel that your family is perfect, right as it is. Cozy, with just you three. Only one child to wrangle, one carseat, one extra plane ticket to buy. So much love and attention, from two parents, three grandparents. Then, there are those times when there are three or four of you with her, and it seems ridiculous, overindulgent, to have all of those adults just for one small child, such excess, wasted resources.

There are, of course, those many moments of pure gold and bliss. Your utter infatuation with your daughter from the moment she was put into your arms. Your endless fascination and amazement at every single new thing that she does, even now. The smell of her curls, the feel of her small warmth in the cool mauve-grey dawn as you are both waking up. You look at her, so utterly herself, so lovely, shining. And you can't even imagine loving anything as much as her, can't imagine finding it in your heart to love anyone or anything so much, again.

But you never imagined her either. She was impossible to imagine, impossible to dream about. Only the reality of her could be enough, and more.

So, how do you know? How do you know if you should have another? How did you know?

Because I still have no idea. And time breathes, hot, at my heels.

 

Of holiday cards and conundrums

I liked Sweetney's posting of her holiday card so much that I have to copy:

Thanks to Leah Stern of Studio Juno for capturing our girl so perfectly and for making Seth and I look much better than we do in real life.

I've always loved the winter holidays. I grew up sort of nominally Christian, though I was an atheist by about 16, and we never went to church. Sure, I sang Christmas carols about Jesus, but I loved them for the melodies and the sentimental familiarity than for any religious significance. We had miniature nativity scene as part of our decor, but it had just always been in the house. Christmas was about cookie baking, tree decorating, singing, Santa Claus, merry making, treasured gifts wrapped in shiny paper, snowball fights, skiing, sledding, friends, the warm light and laughter and food of holiday parties. You'd recall from time to time that a lot of this lovely beauty was kind of supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus, if you're into that sort of thing, but whatever. It wasn't essential. And the clever Christians just tagged onto the pagan celebrations in order to get more converts, so the tree, the Yule logs, the food, the lights, Jesus, Santa Claus, all got rolled into a mongrel of multicultural stuff that we now call "Christmas." It's still beautiful and fun.

Then I had to go marry a nice Jewish boy from New Jersey. Who grew up as a secular, cultural Jew, and not a religious one. And then this nice cultural atheist couple had to go and have a baby, and that's where things have started to get a little complicated.

Honestly, all the Jewish holidays are so much easier. They're a lot more straightforward, since Judaism has (mostly) kept them from being bastardized and mongrelized into some amalgam of pagan and religious and commercial. With Jewish holidays, there's always a good story as the basis. And it's a story that has cultural and historic underpinnings. Hanukkah: Judah and the Maccabees took back a temple from the King of Syria. There was only enough consecrated oil to fuel the holy flame of the temple for one night, but it lasted eight nights, which was (apparently) enough time for more consecrated oil to be made. Yay, miraculous oil! Thus, eight candles for eight nights, and delicious things fried in oil, like latkes and doughnuts. (Oh, and some gift giving, because, well, the Christmas people are doing it and we don't want to be left out from any rampant commercialism.) It's hardly the most farfetched story in religion (see, e.g., that really confusing Bible tale about immaculate conception, some star, Three Kings, mangers, animals, mean innkeepers, etc.). It's easy to get on board with Hanukkah because it's simple.

Then there is Christmas. With all its baggage. The Olive is old enough to start "getting" birthday and Hanukkah and Christmas and all that and I am all of a sudden a high-strung mess about OH DEAR GOD WHAT DO WE TELL HER ABOUT BABY JEEBUS AND SANTY CLAUS AND GODDAMN, THERE IS A LOT OF SCARY LICENSED CHARACTER SHIT IN TOYS 'R' US. Because now I am old and know too much, and the religious overtones are everywhere, and how the hell do I explain this whole Christmas mess, half of which I don't believe in at all?

Seth lets me have a Yule Tree. It is not a Christmas tree, because it is decidedly not about Christ, as the tree tradition is also not about Christ. I had to agree that it would be a totally pagan tree. Which it pretty much has always been, in my family. No star on top. Secular ornaments. (They're almost all horses, because I was a horse-obsessed child, and our Christmas tree just ended up that way. Then my mom got tired of all the stupid horses and sent them all to us. Seth rolls his eyes, and says the excess of horse ornaments just reeks of "spoiled little girl." I point out that there are also a cow, a buffalo, a train, and several sentimental and worn ornaments on the tree, so I wasn't totally indulged.)

So we have a tree. I put up lights outside, because I love holiday lights. This long, dark season can be hard for me and those sparkling lights on everyone's porch at night really do lift my spirits. Those pagan solstice celebrants knew what they were doing with their evergreens and lights, yo, reminding the people that it won't always be cold and dark, and that the green and the light will return.

The thing about Christmas, Yule, solstice, whatever we decide to call it...the thing is, it's PRETTY! And FUN! I have a reindeer's buttload of great memories of the Christmas season. I know an awful lot of Christmas tunes by heart. I try not to play the Jesus-centric ones, because, well, see aforementioned atheism, but I have sentimental attachment to some, like Silent Night. That is one lovely song, y'all, and it's fun to sing. Religious or not, how can you not be moved by the magnificence of Handel's Messiah?

And old Santa Claus. Sigh. St. Nicholas. Sigh. Darn it, he's fun, too. It's fun to believe in the myth and the magic of flying reindeer, to see the cookies eaten in the morning, and a rite of passage when you stop believing. We're going to do the damn Santa Claus thing, despite my misgivings about his religious origins. Even if I'm having a slightly hard time buying the girl a copy of "Twas The Night Before Christmas" because it refers to St. Nick.

I want my daughter to have her own lovely, twinkly-light memories of this season. What a lucky girl she is, to get to light candles to celebrate the miraculous oil, as well as decorate an evergreen tree to celebrate light and warmth amidst the cold and dark. She will be showered by presents from both sides of her family, for both holidays. We will bake cookies and fry latkes. We will wander our neighborhood, our breath freezing in magic clouds in the air, looking at holiday lights and listening for carolers. I hope she will go caroling too, later in life, experience the fun of singing to strangers who then give you hot chocolate and cookies. I'll answer all her questions, as best I can, about Jesus and Santa Claus and reindeer and the whole mess of it. And hopefully not scar her for life. Ooh, look! Pretty lights!