crabby old lady is crabby about...

bikers

minneapolis is lousy with bike paths. the park board maintains more than 43 miles of designated biking paths around city's lakes and along its creeks. nearly six miles of converted railway line extend across the city's center for bikers. there are many bike lanes in, to and from downtown, and a whopping 82 miles of off-street trails.

so why do i always end up driving behind some tour de france wannabe who insists on riding in the street? 

i understand when there is no other option, like for the two gentlemen i followed home the other evening (after 10 pm, in the dark, at about 8 miles per hour, slowly, sloooowly) on a road with no bike lane.

but when i am driving around lakes that are ringed with bike paths? lovely, paved, scenic paths just for you? why, sir, do you instead choose to ride in the road in front of me, turning to glare at me from beneath your helmet when you bob your arms up and down to signal your turns, or muttering at me as i (carefully, carefully) pass you?

i'm driving a minivan, lance ass-strong. that means i outweigh you by about, oh, 4,100 pounds. and it's my road; your path is 10 feet that-a-way. are you just arrogant? or do you have some sort of thin-the-herd death wish?

oh, and the next time you YELL AT ME as i open my van door when i'm parked legally on a minneapolis street and you nearly rip my door off as you speed by? bring it.

women's clothing manufacturers

4 6 7 8 9 10

my winning lottery numbers? hardly.

i recently rolled over and accepted that my pre-maternity clothes will remain just that. the old gray mare ain't what she used to be. and, as i've moved into my 40s, i've discovered that my body parts are following the general migration trend of the country's residents:  all heading south.

so i trundled off for some new stuff. got the basic mommy wardrobe of shorts, cargo pants, jeans and tee shirts, as well as some new jammies for good measure. and i discovered that, apparently, i have some sort of fun-house body that morphs as i move from aisle to aisle, because the clothes i got were all of the sizes listed above, plus xs, s, m, and l just to make things interesting. 

and, with the exception of the jeans, the clothes are all from the same place:  target (or tar-jhay boo-teek, as we in the miniapple call it). how is it even possible that i can wear a 4 pants and a 10 shorts in the exact same in-house brand?! (merona.) hate you, isaac mizrahi.

global warming

it was 40 degrees when i went for a walk this morning. i could probably have seen my breath, if my eyes hadn't been watering so much. 

global warming, my fat fanny. where can i git me some?

i'm too sexy for my baggy, sweat-stained t-shirt

here are some of the exciting ways the handsome man and i memorialized this holiday weekend:

• pruning bushes and trees
  
• scraping and recaulking the tub
  
• shoveling four yards of dirt across our property
  
• seeding the lawn
  
• scrubbing the kitchen floor on hands and knees
  
• taking down storm windows and putting up screens
  
• mowing the lawn
  
• weeding
• planting herbs
• doing six loads of laundry
  
• purchasing a weather radio, two emergency flashlights, and two first aid kits (one for home, one for car) now that tornado season is upon us

and yet, all this was mitigated by that great spring tonic:  rhubarb pie. there are some things to be said for living in minnesota.

the breakfast of whining, gasping, pms-ing losers

• 2 advil
  
• 1-1/2 zoloft
  
• 1 children's multivitamin
  
• 2 cups strong tea

hey, the world has enough champions.

the horror

i do not have high standards when it comes to food.

that is not to say i am not picky or high-maintenance, both of which i decidedly am. no olives, no artichokes, no coconut. nothing that bleeds on my plate or makes eye contact. no hard or soft eggs (hidden in a breakfast quesadilla is about all i can stomach). and dear god, no mollusks, crustaceans or other sea bugs.

but i'm pretty much an omnivore when it comes to junky food, white trash food, and snicky snacks of all kinds. when i'm feeling nostalgic for home, i might whip up an american cheese food sandwich with miracle whip, or a peanut butter-mustard-and-pickle sandwich. (stop that. it's good. and how do you know if you've never tried it, sam-i-am?)

however, tonight i discovered the point at which even i must draw a line in the cool whip. as i was breaking into some chocolate graham crackers (yum!), i saw this on the side of the box:

introducing new easy cheese original cream cheese pasteurized cheese snack!

now you can have the great taste of cream cheese with all the fun of easy cheese. easy cheese original cream cheese can be found in the cracker aisle next to all of your other favorite easy cheese varieties.

spray cream cheese. spray cream cheese that needs no refrigeration. i'm pretty sure that is what the four horsemen of the apocalypse will be snacking on when they come.

i would rather work the fryer at mcdonald's until i'm 100

the ladies and i just returned from an a-1 outing to one of st. paul's bestest and kid-friendliest places, como zoo & conservatory. we steeped ourselves in warm sunshine. we saw giraffes and seals and lions and even (gasp!) reindeer, though probably not, we concluded, santa's reindeer ("but maybe they know him!"). we ate our sandwiches and apples while watching flamingos fight ("maybe they're sisters!"). i bought each girl a bomb pop roughly the size of a sexual device or one of those long knit tubes you put in front of doorways to keep out winter drafts. (and amazingly, they consumed nearly all of them; if i hadn't had them strapped in the stroller, i think they would have started levitating from the sugar high.)

and then, to top it all off, we paid our first-ever visit to the carousel, an enormous 1914 masterpiece with four rows of gorgeously restored horses, lights, mirrors...and a huge wurlitzer band organ.

or, as i now think of it, satan's own glockenspiel.

omfg, was that thing loud. i felt like the grinch being driven to distraction by the whoville residents and all their noise, noise, noise, NOISE! and i'm kind of a deaf old bat from misspending my teens and 20's in bars and clubs, pressed up close to the amps with the beat of a bass guitar pulsing up and down my spine. 

indeed, the carousel's promoters themselves give a shout-out (sorry) to the noise on their website:

why is it so loud?

you may notice as you walk through como park that you can often hear the music before you see the carousel. band organs were designed to be loud in order to attract the public to the carousel. the loud music also helps mask some of the mechanical noises of the ride.

which makes total sense, and is tolerable for the 10-minute ride, slightly less so for the 15 minutes spent waiting in line prior to the ride.

but how about ALL FREAKING DAY?

because the carousel is staffed by volunteers, all of whom appeared to be retirees, and all of whom were sporting airport grounds crew-quality earplugs. (and, perhaps not coincidentally, all of whom were rather grim-faced and cheerless.)

now, i am all for volunteer work; i've done a bunch of different kinds. and i get that many retirees want to stay connected to the work world, like my in-laws whose understanding of "retirement" apparently translates to "go back to your old job, only less often."

but i know that it would only take me a couple of days – one week tops – on the carousel crew before i would become completely unhinged and start trying to shoot the wooden horses. perhaps another, quieter form of retirement should be in my future.

oh, and if you're looking for a super father's day gift, the carousel sells a recording of its band organ tunes! apparently, the carousel pavilion's steel surfaces offer little in the way of sound absorption, so the reverb in the place amplifies the music and creates a "nice effect," though it does "make it a little hard to hear someone speak."

or scream.

etymology lesson for the day

is it called cocktail hour because you want to cold-cock one kid and swat the other on the tail?

mom dialing

my friends and i are now securely past the age of drunk dialing (calling up a current/ex/prospective boyfriend when intoxicated).

but sadly, phone faux pas continue, because we have entered the age of mom dialing. that's when your brain is so addled by child bearing/rearing that you make unintended calls. i submit as evidence:

• my best friend just called me and said, "oh, i wasn't trying to call you, i was trying to call my sister (who happens to be my other best friend)."
  
• i've called one of them, intending to call the other, on several (ok, many) occasions.
  
• i've called myself more than once (cell if i'm at home, and vice versa) trying to reach friend a or friend b.
  
• and i've phoned people and by the time they've picked up, i've already forgotten who i've called ("oh, hi...you!").

so remember, don't breed and dial.

doin' time in solitary

so i took thing one to the dentist the other day. at 4-1/2, she's a veteran; she started going at age 3 when she fell on her face so hard, her tooth and gum turned gray and we were told the tooth might be abscessing. mercifully, it was not. and since we took her to a children's dentist, it was all fun and kites and stickers and picking out presents at the end. 

since then, she's been every six months, which at her age is practically a geologic time period:  a vague, misty era waaaaay back beyond memory.

so when i told josie it was time for another visit, i reminded her of the fun, fun, fun that was in store. i must have really sold it, because she told people, "i get to go to the dentist tomorrow!" (did i mention i used to work in public relations?)

now, josie is a bit, shall we say, dramatic. think of e.t. running around waving his hands in the air, and you get a pretty good mental picture of how she reacts to anything she deems traumatic:  immunizations, thunder and lightening, running out of goldfish crackers, being unable to locate a desired ball, mommy wanting to pee before sitting down to read 14,000 children's books aloud, life.

i try to be sympathetic, because she comes by it honestly. when i was a kid, woe was me. my aunt called me sarah bernhardt because of my penchant for histrionics, and my mom would narrow her eyes and hiss, "i hope you get one just like you." 

in my defense, i tended more toward the sullen and sulky kind of dramatics:  slumping through the house, glowering, and slamming doors. which i'm sure was incredibly annoying, but at least not terribly loud.

josie, however, likes to get her shriek on. the moment she sat in the dentist's chair, she started to rev up. chair going up and leaning back? shriek. teeny mirror inserted in mouth to count teeth? shriek. brushing with bubble gum-flavored toothpaste and tiny, tickly brush? shriek. flossing? double shriek.

the climax came with the fluoride treatment. when the handsome man and i were kids, we later reminisced, this involved sitting with trays of revolting goo in your mouth for what seemed like days, not daring to move a muscle lest said goo trickle down your throat and make you retch. when it was finally over, you were sternly warned not to eat or drink for about a month or the fluoride wouldn't work and you'd have to do it all again.

wanna know how they do fluoride now? they paint it on the teeth with the world's eentsiest brush in about 10 seconds, and that's it. as soon as the saliva hits it, you can eat or drink. 

but josie couldn't care less if my teeth walked 10 miles uphill both ways to school when i was a kid. to her, the fluoride treatment was very deliberately designed to kill her. my god, the screams! she sounded like a medieval saint being martyred in some odd and gruesome way. and since the dentist's office is set up as a big, open space with many chairs for many kids, the sound it did a-travel.

when the appointment was all over (15 minutes tops; seemed like an hour), the girls played with toys in the waiting room while i talked to the gal at the future appointments desk. i mentioned that thing two will need to be seen next time as well, since she'll be 3 by then. "the hygienist said i could schedule the two appointments at the same time, and the girls could sit next to each other," i said.

"hmm," she replied. "it says here they want to see josie in the 'quiet room' next time. did she have some trouble today?"

yep, she's going in the hole. being thrown in the box. visiting the pound. being given the shoe. doing time in solitary. 

cue the harmonica.

p.s. in fairness to josie, i probably should mention that when i was a kid, i once locked myself in my dentist's bathroom for an hour and refused to come out. and in fairness to me, this was the same dentist who once DRILLED MY TONGUE because he was too busy flirting with his hygienist to pay attention to the job at hand. jerk.

the four food groups

as a mother, on this mother's day, i feel it is my duty to remind you about the four food groups:

• chocolate
  
• peanut butter
  
• cheese
  
• bacon
  

i have yet to come across a food or dish that would not be improved by the addition of one or more of these essentials.

who needs a food pyramid when you can become a pyramid? is what i say.

playgroup

want to make get-togethers with other parents and wee ones more fun? try a playgroup! 

no, not that kind. i'm talking about playgroup, the drinking game, as described in the book inconsolable:  how i threw my mental health out with the diapers. (it's a lot funnier than it sounds. really.) here's how you do it...

the playgroup:

• two parts knudsen hibiscus cooler [editor's note: or whatever]
  
• one part inexpensive vodka
  
• one part pedialyte, any flavor (to prevent dehydration and extend play)
  

mix ingredients together in a small sippy cup (preferably two-handled). add ice cube and shake vigorously; serve.

rules of play:

players who do not have a sippy cup available will automatically pick up a two-drink penalty and must consume their beverage from whatever receptacle is handy (e.g., sports bottle, neti pot, oral syringe, dirty ashtray, athletic shoe).

if a grown-up uses the word "poopy," that person drinks.

if a child uses the word "poopy," everyone drinks.

all drink if a child asks to nurse (with or without words).

all drink if a child is learning how to use the potty (once for each child).

all drink if a child takes a toy from another child.

finish your glass if your child is the thief.

all drink every time a child cries.

finish your glass every time a mother or father cries.

all drink whenever a box of baby wipes is opened.

drink twice whenever you eat a snack intended for a child (e.g., graham crackers, arrowroot cookies, zwieback toast).

all drink when the following topics are raised:

• frequency of sexual relations
  
• pornography/the sex industry
  
• reliable automobiles
  
• real estate (including neighborhood comparisons)
  
• recipes
  
• religion (including wicca and earth-worship)
  
• movies
  
• cable-access television
  
• hair color
  
• job hunting
  
• dogs/puppies
  
• preschool
  

drink twice if:

• the recipes are vegan or wheat-free.
  
• recipes are actually exchanged.
  
• anyone has had sexual relations in the past 48 hours.
  
• anyone's car is in the shop.
  
• a borrowed object is returned.
  

finish your glass if:

• your child vomits or defecates explosively (sufficient to cause staining outside the diaper).
  
• a child hits another child with an implement of any nature (e.g., shape-sorting cube, umbrella, machete).
  

the prettiest little ugly american

you never realize how much stuff you have until you move.

the ridiculous clothes you've been hanging on to. the old electronics. the unnecessary end tables. the sports equipment. the cutlery, dinnerware, pots and pans. 

the pink corvette.

barbara millicent roberts, you've got it all. and i just schelped it all upstairs.

yes, the barbie dream mcmansion has been relocated from the basement to the upstairs playroom. this was not my idea, but thing one pleaded. pleeeeeeaded. so while she packed barbie's extensive wardrobe, i lugged up the house (complete with elevator!), the car, the camping van, and the horse and stable. (the carriage and the other horse will remain downstairs; perhaps a parade is in the offing?)

it's like traveling with a miniature paris hilton. and the fashions! i mean, really. barbie is pushing 50 now; she ought to retire the skin-tight pedal pushers and mesh bikini. tramp.

at least i didn't pay for any of this stuff. (thanks, peg!) that's more than poor conrad hilton can say.

it turns the stomach

otto von bismarck must not have had daughters.

because if he had, i'm confident that the late prime minister of prussia would not have said that it's best to avoid seeing how laws and sausages are made. he would have said laws, sausages, and tea parties with cocoa in all the wee pots, cups, saucers, creamers and sugar bowls.

ye gods.

this may put me off chocolate for at least a few hours.

attention new recruits

the following is the official mom wardrobe for spring/summer 2008, as evidenced by scientific research (meaning what i and every other woman on every playground i've been to are wearing):

• cargo pants, preferably dark or drab color to hide dirt (though i do have an orange pair, too!)
  
• sturdy t-shirt, possibly with cute/snarky words and images
• zip-front hoodie sweatshirt
  
• ankle-high socks
• easily removed tennies (slip ons, velcro, etc.)
  
• sunglasses
  
• hat (optional; depends on if you're still trying to con your kids into wearing them)
  

this is the only sanctioned uniform. however, exceptions may be made for flip-flops, head scarves, and cargo shorts. 

please note that this wardrobe works equally well for dads, though their tees tend to favor college/sports/beer logos. other than than, we look like the stepford p.t.a.

and on a related mommying note – to the 6-foot-tall, disastrously pregnant amazon i saw emerging from a mini cooper at target:  sweetie, i admire your perseverance, but it's time to trade in for a minivan, or at least something that's not a clown car.  you're going to need the jaws of life to pry you out of your vehicle in about, oh, two days. tops.

daisy assassin

i hate gardening. haaaaate it. 

i like looking at the green stuff. but tending to it is a pain in my petunia. gardening is hot, sweaty, dirty, back ache-inducing work, and i emphasize the word work. it's like choosing to be a field hand in my leisure time.

and the payoff is...more work. more weeds, more watering, more pruning, more scratches, more bug bites, more heat, sweat, dirt and aches. the stuff just keeps growing, no matter how much you whack it back. have you ever tried to eradicate a grape vine? you can't, nor can you kill day lilies. i've tried.

i don't mean to sound sniffy, but this is a hobby for the mentally deficient. "the jenny vee memorial garden for the slow," my husband calls it. it's kind of like camping, which is also stooopid. why would i go out of my way to sleep on rocks and pee outside? didn't my ancestors spend millions of years evolving so i could have running water and body pillows and great lash mascara? 

similarly, why would i want to "relax" by working like a peasant woman in the potato fields when i could be sitting with my feet up, lemonade in hand, doing the sunday crossword? or napping? isn't this why the gentry used to have serfs?

and now i must go pluck pine needles from my flesh. (i just removed the christmas tree toppers from our window box. hey, it snowed last week – they still looked plausible.)

by any means necessary

achieving civil justice.

and getting 2-year-old and 4-year-old girls dressed for the day.

a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down

or skittles.

hey, bribery works.

oh m'darlin, oh m'darlin, oh m'darlin clementine

necessity is the mother of invention. i am the mother of a toddler and a preschooler. i am also out of limes.

but i wasn't going to let that stand in between me and a cocktail. so instead of having a cosmo, i squeezed a clementine and voilà:  a new drinkie poo is born. 

the oh m'darlin

• 1-1/4 oz vodka
  
• 3/4 oz triple sec
  
• 1-1/4 oz cranberry juice
  
• juice of one clementine
  
• splash of rose's lime juice
  

shake all over ice. delish.

houdini

here's an idea for all you preschool teachers out there:  why don't you give your charges a puzzle with all different kinds of locks for them to learn how to bust through? i'm talking sliding bar locks, twist locks, hook-and-eye locks, sliding chain locks – the works. 

WTF?!

our four-year-old doesn't need any help disarming locks, thanks. this is the child we nicknamed "houdini" at age two when she figured out how to unlatch the carabiner-style gate hooks. we had to resort to padlocking each of our three backyard gates to keep her penned up. it took this child 20 minutes to figure out how to pop the fridge lock we installed (i had more trouble with it than her). when we moved into our new house, we had to replace the flip locks on the front and back doors because she kept "helping" us open them (the new locks are keyed, natch). 

"next year maybe they teach them safe cracking," the handsome man said. i'm hoping for hot-wiring; probably more job opportunities in that. 

sheesh.

it was a dark and stormy tantrum hour

actually, it's just drizzling and chilly, but never mind – the handsome man and i recently discovered the cocktail that will see us through the summer. i heartily recommend it:

the dark and stormy

• pack a highball glass with ice
  
• add 1-1/2 oz (or a titch more) dark bermuda rum, like gosling's.
  
• squeeze in the juice from several lime wedges, running the last one around the rim and tossing it in the glass
  
• fill the glass with ginger beer (the stuff from bermuda, like barritts, is preferred over the jamaican kind; thank you, mr. internet)
  
• reeeeelax

the pain only a woman knows

yes, i'm talking about trying to find a pair of jeans.

(not to be confused with the other pains only women know, like growing out your bangs, having a baby, or shopping for a bathing suit.)

over the past two weeks, i have ordered five – five! – different styles of jeans from gap.com and oldnavy.com in the vain quest for something that:  a) fits b) is comfortable and c) looks even vaguely acceptable. 

why don't i go to the stores and try them on, you ask? why, because they don't carry petites in the stores, of course. (we are too short to reach the counter to pay? our money is too small? what?) thank god for free shipping and returns.

i've tried gap's classic boot cut, new boot cut, and long and lean (ironically, the best fitting of the bunch). i've tried old navy's "goddess" (the renamed high-waisted mom jeans) and "sweetheart" styles (almost as high and mom-like; old navy's marketing people are geniuses). i've tried curvy fit, straight fit, and stretch denim.

and the verdict is? they all suck rocks. which, coincidentally, is what my ass looks like in them.

so back they go. i'll try again next fall. fortunately, i went through the pain only women know part 5:  shorts shopping last summer, so i'm good for a new months.

"mama, come look at my giant poo!"

file under:  phrases i never knew i'd hear.

as my brother, a father of three, says, "this wasn't in the brochure."

one fish, two fish, red fish, eeeeww fish

one fish

i bought a bathing suit the other day. like other naughty substances in our culture – sex toys, prescription drugs for maladies you don't have – bathing suits are best purchased over the internet, from the privacy of your own home. landsend.com is my preferred pusher, as they sell many suits with skirts, shorts, cover-ups, etc. i'm waiting for the full-body cocoon model; hopefully it will be out soon.

in the meantime, i opted for the all-over control lingerie slender swim dress. first and most important, it was on sale. and second, the name (or at least parts of it) and the picture evoked thoughts of a floaty, feminine little number that would rustle delightfully in the breeze while still covering my hindquarters and drumsticks.

instead, what arrived was a garment made of fabric so thick, tough and unyielding you could bury a man at sea in it. it weighs about five pounds, and i feel like mother russia storming the beach in it – the proletariat goes for a dip. but it looks ok and achieves my prime directive in swim wear:  COVER THAT SHIT UP.

two fish

alas, the same cannot be said for all of my fellow minnesotans. the handsome man and i took thing one and thing two to the water park of america last weekend. yee gods, i have never seen so much of  so many pale, pasty, corn-fed folks. aiiiiiie!

and it's april. that means we are just coming off of six months' hibernation, when all the world sees of you are your eyes and ice-encrusted lashes and there's not much incentive to lay off the cheetos. apparently, that is no deterrent to bikini purchases, or backless/sideless/nearly frontless bathing suits, or skin-tight bicycle shorts. oh, the humanity!

it's not that i am less pale, pasty or corn-fed than my compatriots; it's that i COVER THAT SHIT UP so that i won't permanently scar their eyeballs. even the handsome man, who almost never says anything bad about anyone (why did i marry him?), muttered, "i think that's illegal in seven states" when a particularly unfortunate teen galumphed by.

we live in a (relatively) civil society, people. social contract and all that. so please, please, join me in COVERING THAT SHIT UP.

red fish, eeeeww fish

and finally, to the speedo-clad man at the uptown ywca doing poolside sit-ups during swimming lessons for impressionable children (and fragile mommies):  sir, i beg of you:

COVER.

THAT.

SHIT.

UP!

a noun is a person, place or thing. or a baby.

"why do you hate the baby?" names volume 3 – the nouning of our children:

• azurite
  
• poppy
  
• holiday
  
• champale
  
• karizzma 
  

with apologies to dr. seuss

the sun did not shine.

it was too wet to play.

so we sat in the house

all that cold, cold, wet day.

or we would have, if had any sense at all. but i had tried to take the girls to see farm babies at the minnesota zoo (sponsored by hormel! ook) last week, only to remember it was spring break for the minneapolis public schools and there were approximately 1 million people with the same idea. we bailed; much unhappiness ensued.

so i promised – something i try NEVER to do – that i would take them today, because the damn exhibit closes this weekend. (perhaps because hormel has plans for the little dears?) which means, of course, that it has been raining, snowing, gusting and blowing since yesterday.

"but mommy, you promised!" so, like an asshole, i packed us up and headed through the slush to the swine barn. at least i'm a prepared asshole:  i had the jogging stroller with the rain cover, a lap robe, snacks, drinks, lovies – christ, the girls were bundled up better than lara in dr. zhivago. other people were slogging the 1/2 mile or so each way with flimsy umbrella strollers, soggy blankets, or just carrying their unhappy young'uns.

and, like all great parenting achievements, the payback was...whining. it's cold, why can't we see the dolphins too, i want an oompa loompa now, etc.

tomorrow the whole family is going to the water park! fuuuuuu...

another rite of passage

first tooth, first step, first word, first barbie doll decapitation.

at least her coat will be nice and glossy

my people are not at their best in the morning, especially the handsome man. i don't think he really wakes up until about noon, poor thing. but he tries.

this morning, he took over toast duty from me (i don't remember why; it probably involved some sort of child-related mess). and he proceeded to make thing two cinnamon sugar toast with...shortening.

in his defense, the earthy-crunchy, braid-your-armpit-hair margarine and shortening we buy because of thing two's food allergies are packaged the same:  both in gold foil wrappers.  note to the earth balance company:  would it kill you to invest in some silver foil, too?

who knows what evil lurks in the gut of a small child?

how is this even possible? my not-quite-four-and-a-half year old just plugged up the john, and it wasn't with toilet paper. 

good god, how does a body that small even produce something that large? she weighs 36 pounds, has a butt the size of my fist, and only just grew out of her size 2-3t undies!

the handsome man is off to fetch the plunger...

well

it's 7:52 a.m. on saturday. time for several more hours of sleep, a leisurely breakfast, a pedicure and perhaps a nap.

hee.

actually, it's time to start my third load of laundry for the day, since one child managed to pee through two beds last night (hers and then mine). but first, i must dispose of a giant steaming turd, courtesy of the other child.

the glamour never ends.

call hazelden

the handsome man was prepping my second cup of tea this morning, and he reused the tea bag from the first cup as i usually do (i am cheap). i allowed as how i intended to go full strength on the second cup today with a whole new bag. so, being the wild man that he is, he simply popped a second tea bag into the cup, along with the first one. "speed ball!" he said laughing.

sadly, that's about as close to illicit pleasures as people our age get any more.

what's a 9-letter word for brain balm?

c-r-o-s-s-w-o-r-d.

i used to read a lot. like, a lot a lot. partly it was vocation:  i was a double-major undergrad who went immediately on to get back-to-back graduate degrees (in art history and museum studies, because i wanted to make the big bucks).

but mostly it was because i loved words. books, magazines, talk radio, dictionaries. (did i mention i was not part of the cool crowd in school? did i need to?) i read at the table, in the bathtub, behind textbooks in class. i read cereal boxes and shampoo bottles if there was nothing else available. at one point, my mother hid my tattered copy of gone with the wind because i had read its 1024 pages so many times it had begun to disintegrate. (we're talking probably a dozen times or more. and yes, i did find it, though it took me a while – it was in the laundry hamper. well played, mom; well played). i knew my husband was the man for me when i realized he read even more than i do, and we spent many nights and weekends in happy silence with our respective printed materials, or reading the funny bits out loud to each other.

then i had children. 

it is hard to dive down into the depths of, say, the latest harry potter or sue grafton or michael pollan when you have a hive of hornets buzzing around your head. the constant requests/tantrums/fights/need for attention RIGHT NOW kind of kill the ability to follow a complicated story line.

i think that is why i have embraced crossword puzzles with such ferocity:  they are perfect for my adhd lifestyle. ten minutes, five minutes, a passing glance – any amount of time, no matter how small, can generate pleasure and keep the old neurons firing for one more day. i may put the milk in the cupboard or throw my keys in the trash or lose my sunglasses on top of my head (really, really and really), but at least i remember that a five-letter word for paper quantity is "quire." 

shove over, condoleezza

i may have a solution to the world's diplomatic snarls:  preschool teachers.

preschool teachers are masters at saying things in the sweetest, most cushioned way possible. they can make a compliment out of virtually anything.

here's what it said on the report i got last week at thing one's preschool conference:

"josie is a happy, well-liked little girl developing good self-esteem."

wait for it...

"quiet in a positive way – always gets her needs met."

hmm...

"can be a leader as well as a follower."

here it comes....

"likes to take on the 'mom' role at times."

is that not the nicest way of saying "bossy little shit" you've ever heard? think of what this women could do in the world's hot spots.

april fool's

ok, very funny. someone can come and remove the snow any time.

any time now.

any time.

is there an ark for this?! maybe a giant luge?

it has now been snowing for nearly 15 hours straight. sweet fancy moses, it looks like a scene from little house on the prairie outside:  total white desolation. 

we are a state of five million april fools for putting up with this.

(in a related development, the handsome man just walked by and remarked how pretty it is. i may have to smother him with a pillow.)

possibly the best slogan ever

herbivore: putting the "f.u." in tofu since 2003.

wii are not amused

i admit it – i have officially entered crabby-old-ladyhood. i do not understand the following:

• reality television
  
• thong underwear (why? i spend my whole life trying to avoid this sensation)
  
• text messaging
  
• video and computer games, specifically the wii craze
  

the handsome man brought a wii home from work this weekend to play with. yes, his company has a wii. he works for a big advertising agency that buys expensive toys to keep the creative staff amused. apparently amused writers and art directors are more productive and wacky! (or just really good wheedlers of expensive toys.)

anyway, he plugged the wii into the tv in our basement playroom, and he and thing one proceeded to plug themselves into the wii. they spent several hours wii bowling, which i was forced to observe for a while (a short while). 

i was surprised that the graphics were so – what's the word i'm looking for? – rudimentary. lousy would be another word:  the bowlers do not have arms, just two spheres that move around like arms. so when they're getting ready to bowl, it looks like they've had some sort of horrible boob jobs gone badly awry. the handsome man explained this away by saying something about "processing power" and "the computer program drawing the arms" and "more memory." whatever. they looked stooopid.

and here's a wild idea:  if you want to bowl, why not go bowling? at a real bowling alley, with real balls? people do that, i've heard.

i am so glad we don't have any of our own video/computer game crap. if we did, i am sure i would find daddy and daughter down in the basement a few months from now, fluorescent white from lack of sunshine and with thumbs as big as ping-pong paddles (that you, julie, for that imagery).

it's raaaining, it's snooowing!

mommy's mind is gooooing!

and the children are already at each other's throats. 

too early for a cocktail?

robin! robin! robin! part deux

a postscript: the handsome man took the snow tires off our vehicles this weekend. so tomorrow it's supposed to snow 4-8 inches.

i blame him.

and julie said something about his knees and a crowbar...

robin! robin! robin!

it's hard to overstate the joy of seeing the season's first robin up here on the tundra, like i did today. rather than a "oh, that's pleasant" feeling, it conjures up a "jesus god, i made it through another one" sort of vibe. 

one year my friend julie – who had a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old and a new baby – pulled over to the side of the road, put her head on her steering wheel, and cried when she saw a robin. that was shortly after it had snowed (again) about a foot in mid-april. 

sample night at the liquor store?!

i don't think i really need to say anything other than that, except maybe "ahhh."

orange you glad you're not two?

disclaimer: i love two-year-olds. they are sweet, cuddly, funny and fascinating a lot of the time.

but.

there are those trying moments/days/weeks. those grade a mood swings. those puzzling personality tics.

i have known little girls who will only wear pink, or dresses, or sparkly shoes. my kid? only wants to wear orange.

this has been going on for a year. she is quite vehement and will only deign to don other colors if all the orange things are dirty. or hidden. (did i say that?) 

have you tried shopping for orange everything in the little girls department? i'll save you the trouble – you can't. head to the little boys department, because that's where the orange stuff lives. i found thing two's favoritest bilious orange tees there, one that says "i'm definitely up to something" and the other that says "monkey see, monkey do, monkey get in trouble too." we have also gotten more than our fair share of use from halloween pumpkin and spider shirts.

fortunately, orange must be gaining ground, because for spring i found several little girls shirts, a bathing suit and a dress that are actually – gasp – cute. which pretty much guarantees babycakes will change her color allegiance soon.

future supermodel

here's what thing two had for breakfast this morning (her choice):

• a clementine
  
• grapes
  
• strawberries
• half a grapefruit
  

this is the same child who, when we were on the road to iowa for easter, ignored her hamburger and french fries at mcdonald's in favor of picking mandarin orange slices, soybeans and "leaves" out of my salad.

i think she may have been switched at birth.

honk if you're an urban white liberal

here is a smattering of the bumper stickers i saw when thing two and i went to the public library this morning:

• enough is enough:  vote democratic
  
• support the troops, end the war
  
• who would jesus bomb?
  
• the current 89.3 (public radio music station)
• no weapons in space
• love your mother (with a picture of the earth)
  
• i make breast milk – what's your superpower?
  
• republicans for voldemort (that would be my honda odyssey sporting this one)
  

hmmm...could this be the same minneapolis that voted, like, 1000% for gore and kerry?

the new new math

i have never been good at math. in high school, i eked out a d+ in pass-fail pre-cal in 11th grade and called it quits.

but i've discovered that motherhood kick starts a range of heretofore unknown talents including, in my case, the ability to come up with complex equations like this one:

toddler (t) + eye patch (p) + large sugary cupcake (c) + too much indoor time (i) + hula hoop (h2) = broken floor lamp (@#$%)

can i get caramel syrup on that?

denial runs strong in a certain faction of minnesotans, viz:  those of us who hate winter. (i know, i know. what can i say? we're stupid stay-puts who don't have the sense god gave a turnip.) today i thought we woke up to 4 inches of the sodden, cement-like stuff lovingly known here as "heart attack snow."

but my winter-hating pal julie set me straight. "it's a rain frappé," she insisted. 

a whaaa?

"a frappé. like the drink. it's not snow – it's whipped, frozen rain. a rain frappé."

i don't know whether to hug her or institutionalize her. perhaps both.

the hair o' the antihistamine that bit her

thing two has been taking antihistamines daily for her eczema since she was about six months old. for the first several months, it was an epic struggle. i got very good at pining her between my legs and prying her mouth open, then squirting the syringe in not once, not twice, but three times. (i expect to pursue a career in calf roping after the children leave for college.)

with repetition it got easier, and by the time she was about 18 months old, she would pop open her mouth like a baby bird so i could pour the drugs in.

then she turned two and hit the big time – goodbye syringe, hello little dosing cup. she digs being in control, especially since we've introduced the concept of "bottoms up!"

"bottoms up!" she'll happily cheer before she tosses back her morning shot. and i do mean toss: she's learned how to knock it all back in one go. recently, she mastered the art of holding the cup in her teeth and doing her shot with no hands. her father and i are so proud. "she's all ready for college!" i said. "señor frog's, here she comes!"

next on the docket? daddy wants to teach her how to lick salt from her hand. we're ready to be fitted for our parents-of-the-year sashes any time now.

my new hero

wendi aarons, i love you:

have a happy period (an open letter to james thatcher, brand manager, proctor and gamble)

thanks, kath, for sending me this. the timing was, oh, let's just say, appropriate.

don't say i didn't warn you

totally, utterly, completely addictive:

freerice.com

and a nice thing to do, too.

here's one for the baby book

as usual, i made a pit stop before setting off to pick up thing one from preschool. and, as usual, thing two followed me to the loo.

however, we had a sudden and dramatic deviation from our routine when, as i leaned around to get a fresh roll of toilet paper out from under the sink (like all adult women, i am the only one in the home who possesses this arcane skill), thing two scrambled up on her plastic stool, lost her balance, and fell backward.

into the potty.

that i had just peed in.

her little body snapped shut into a perfect jackknife position, butt in the bowl and knees in front of her face, and her eyes got as big as hubcaps. but before she could commence wailing, i had fished her out and stripped her. and flushed. 

i then set a land-speed record getting the wet, weepy and pissed (in all senses) baby clean, dry, dressed and in the van.

we were on time picking up thing one.

and i never laughed at thing two, although i think i may have strained something while bottling it up.

ouch, ouch, ouch

finally got to the dentist today for my check-up, seven months late. he has determined i have "delicate gums," which i believe is the nice way of saying "flinches and bleeds a lot."

oh well, at least there's some part of me that has been deemed delicate. kind of reminds me of the late molly ivins, newspaper columnist and author extraordinaire, writing how she went to the spa and they told her she had "a fabulous space between her eyes."

i could lie down on the kitchen floor and sleep, too

poor baby. giving up naps is hard.

(predictably, when i tried to move her to her bed, she popped awake.)

come again?

remember holly hobbie, that cloyingly sweet icon of 1970s girlie schmaltz? (yeah, i loved her, too.)

well, she's real. there is an actual holly hobbie behind holly hobbie (nee denise holly ulinskas, married to douglas hobbie). and now she writes children's books about two best-friend pigs. named toot and puddle, or "puds." who live together. in a place called – get ready – woodcock pocket.

seriously, ms. hobbie? i mean, the illustrations are charming, but i can barely get through the text when i regale my girls with the stories, and i have to leave the room when my husband reads them. 

it's as bad as what my friend remembers as the big woody era, after the movie toy story and all its ancillary paraphernalia came out, when every other little boy was shrieking, "i want a big woody!"

oh, and in other porcine-wtf? news, the minnesota zoo is again doing its cutesy farm babies exhibit this spring, and the sponsor is again...hormel. 

the things we do for love

this afternoon, i fashioned a splint out of tinfoil to repair an injured icicle. 

hee.

ah, drugs

wha... it's march? i missed february?

well, at least i know how it happened:  my clan and I were brought low by illness. actually everyone in minnesota has been brought low this winter. i swear, i have never known so many people to be so sick for so long. influenza. ear infections. strep throat. croup. pneumonia. constricted airways. body aches. headaches. throwing up. sheer misery.

after being among the missing myself for weeks, i finally lined up babysitting and dragged my sorry butt into my doctor's last wednesday...only to be told that my appointment was thursday.

i am not surprised, as when i looked in my date book for wednesday i found...nothing. ditto for thursday. because my head had swelled to 400 pounds and was filled with sloshing, chartreuse goo, i had barely formed a coherent thought for weeks:

"children. i have...children. must...feed...children. must make...what's it called? dinner.  must make...dinner."

trying to put one mental foot in front of the other was like squeezing cement through a pastry tube:  everything moved very, very slowly.

so i returned to the doctor on thursday, this time with my kids. i strapped them down to their stroller, gave them books and jelly beans (today's parenting tip:  bribery works!), and told them that under no circumstances would they be allowed to get out or touch anything. we already have the plague; the last thing i need is for them to lick the waiting room end tables and bring home something else.

shockingly, the ladies were models of decorum while my doctor diagnosed a snarling sinus infection. i received not only a prescription for an antibiotic, but also a prescription for a refill, just in case (seriously, 400 pounds of chartreuse goo). 

i wheeled the ladies back out to the waiting room and thanked them for their compliance. while i bundled them up, they made eyes at the other patients, who all found them absolutely darling. then, as we made to leave, thing one dropped her water cup and said, loudly, "damn!" 

i smiled weakly and sprinted for the door.

now, after five days of zithromax – buttressed by sudafed, tylenol, motrin, coca-cola and cosmopolitans – i have returned to human form. and we've had a little talk about which words are not polite to say in front of others, even if daddy sometimes does. ("and mommy!" thing one helpfully pointed out.) but damn, it's nice to finally feel better.

conspiracy theorist weighs in

so i dragged my jiggly self back to weight watchers today, since the "baby" weight has been creeping back on since halloween, and the baby is almost 2-1/2.

the closest ww, it turns out, is in a minor-league strip mall and is conveniently sandwiched between a pancake house and a plus-size clothing store.

hmm.

rated pg-1965

well, it was bound to happen. the 4-year-old was miffed by/struggling with something, and i heard her say, "dammit!"

oopsie. 

although, in fairness to me, i try really hard to keep it clean around the kidlets. and she did say "dammit!" in exactly the same tone that her father does. not that i'm pointing fingers or anything.

her little outburst was like a proustian madeleine for me (albeit auditory): it immediately transported me back to my grandparents' house. my father's people were a polite lot, but as my mother has said, her parents could barely speak without swearing. it's not much of an exaggeration to say that every other word out of their mouths was hell, shit, damn, ass or some variation of those four:

• "how the hell are you?" 
  
• "move your fat ass!" 
  
• "goddammit, did i clean that house: i went through it like shit through a tin horn!" (this one always mystified me, but i didn't dare ask for clarification.)
  

i believe my grandfather's given name might have been "goddammit, bud!" because that's the only way i can remember my grandmother addressing him. 

things would grow especially heated around the holidays and the ritual roasting of the bird. oh, the turkey wars! the carnage, the bloodshed, the terror! (but dinner was delicious.) i remember one year how my dad wrote a little play about my grandparents and the turkey, and he and my mom acted it out in front of us all as best they could in between their own gasping laughs. the climax came, as it always did in real life, with the argument about whether the red thingie popping out of the bird really signified doneness or not. my grandparents were NOT amused.

despite all this (and despite the fact that in later years, i would come to believe that my mother had named my brother and me "dammit, david!" and "jesus, jennifer!"), my mom never heard the really dirty words. her parents never dropped the f-bomb, at least in front of her. hence this naive exchange on the eve of my birth, when my parents were prepping the new baby's room:

my dad: "f---ing wallpaper! f---ing wallpaper paste! f---ing (insert decorating task here)!"

my 8++++ months pregnant mom: "what does that word mean?"

dad: "what word?"

mom: "f---ing. what does it mean?"

dad: (collapse into helpless laughter)

have a helluva good day, goddammit.

and she is

"i have an idea!"

the four scariest words in the english language.

if you are my husband.

and you see me a-comin' at 8:30 in the morning with an old piece of foam core, a dozen screw hooks, a utility knife, fabric odds and ends, and some spray paint.

but i must say, my homemade necklace wrangler turned out quite well, especially considering my investment of time (minimal) and money (none). and it nicely complements the earring wrangler i made many years ago from an old picture frame, some window screen, and spray paint.

oh, how i loves the spray paint.

doogie howser, pharm. d.

here are some words the not-quite-two-and-a-half-year-old can say perfectly:

• zyrtec
  
• motrin
  
• tylenol
  
• amoxicillin
  
• nebulizer
  
• bacitracin
• suture nurse

i see a career as a pharmacist. or perhaps a drug dealer.

eye patch? not s'bad

when i find myself starting to whine too much about my kids' "problems" that's usually a good time to read e-mails from the food allergy mommies group, the eczema mommies group, and the lazy eye mommies group.

to wit: here's a post from a mom whose son (i think he's 2; might be 3) just got his allergy test results back. he is allergic to 41 foods. 41:

• peanut
  
• almond
  
• walnut
  
• cashew
  
• pecan
  
• pistachio
  
• egg yolk
  
• egg white
  
• milk
  
• beef
  
• pork
  
• lamb
  
• chicken
  
• turkey
  
• fish
  
• corn
  
• rice
  
• soy 
  
• wheat
  
• barley
  
• rye
  
• oats
  
• sunflower (includes seeds)
  
• safflower
  
• peach
  
• pear
  
• pineapple
  
• apple
  
• banana
  
• orange
  
• cantaloupe
  
• white potato
  
• sweet potato
  
• peas
  
• green bean
  
• red kidney bean
  
• tomato
  
• onion
  
• garlic
  
• mustard
  
• cumin
  

and the mom also has a baby with health problems.

here's a swell idea

for all you folks who run home day cares in minnesota, i have a great idea for how to pass the time on one of our sunny, a**-cracking cold mornings:

• bundle up all the kids in your charge. make sure there are at least five of them, all under four years old.
  
• put the baby in a regular stroller rather than a jogging one, so you have enormous difficulty steering over the snow.
  
• because both your hands are needed to pilot the stroller, have the little ones just hold on to each other when you all cross the street.
  
• now make sure to cross some busy intersections. don't worry if some of the kids head in a different direction as you – they'll catch up eventually!

jesus h. tap-dancing christ. and she was heading for the creek with all those kids. the creek!

all i can glean from this sighting is that people: 
a) are insane,
b) have waaaay more faith in the universe than i do, and 
c) are insane (i really can't stress this point enough).

i may have created a monster

the 2-year-old just scornfully rejected the eye patch her father picked out for this morning, saying, "it doesn't match my purple jammie shirt!"

i have no one to blame but myself.

(and i'm just a teeny bit proud.)

ugh

thing two and i both still have the plague. i spent most of the weekend in bed; she spent most of the weekend shrieking if she wasn't sitting or lying on me. very restful.

last night, barnacle baby kept waking up and shrieking for mama, so i finally laid down with her in her bed. which meant when she woke up shrieking, i was close enough for her to do it directly into my ear canal.

and shriek she did, about every 45 minutes. what she didn't do was notice that i was RIGHT THERE rubbing her back, stroking her cheek, whispering soothing nothings, and generally being a nice mommy. but she was so out of it, it took her about 10 minutes to clue into the fact that i was RIGHT THERE. then she'd fall back asleep, spin herself around until she was at a 90 degree angle to me, and kick me over and over again.

this was repeated about 159 times during the night. i may be exaggerating.

now i'm off to my pre-dawn mammogram. it should be like a trip to club med after last night.

captain hook's revenge

the handsome man fixed the knob on our bedroom door so now when thing one locks it, we can push a pin in to pop the lock from the outside (we did discover that in a pinch, a hello kitty valentine's day card slid between the door trim and wall works well, too).

this is not the first time child + lock = unintended consequences. oh no.

back in the mists of time, when i was a new (read: terrified) mom, i tried to calm my anxieties by baby proofing. everything. i had gates and outlet covers, foam padding and locks. oh, so many locks! cabinet locks, cupboard locks, stove lock, refrigerator lock. if babies r us sold a lock for it, i sealed it shut.

i also made my own locks out of metal hooks and eyes to keep the precious bundle from opening the basement door (even though it had a baby gate just inside), the workroom door (in the basement, beyond the baby gate and locked basement door), and that great, gaping maw of death: the bathroom.

i don't know why i was so freaked out about her getting in the bathroom. perhaps it was those helpful baby proofing articles that scream, "NEVER leave your child unattended around water even for a SECOND! babies can DROWN in just a few inches of water, you MORON! what kind of mother ARE you?!"

i was convinced that should my attention ever waver, josie would immediately rush to the potty and plunge in, head first.

so i put a hook and eye outside the bathroom door and began hounding the handsome man to use it. i was relentless, a harpy screeching day and night, "lock the door! lock the door! YOU FORGOT TO LOCK THE DOOR!"

to his credit, he didn't divorce or institutionalize me; instead, he got with the program and LOCKED THE DOOR. it got to be an instinctive behavior for both of us, like putting your foot on the clutch when you drive a stick shift car. lock the door, lock the door, lock the door.

one night when josie was a little over a year old, i repaired to the bathtub with my chai tea and stack of smithsonian magazines (because i am a swinger). after a few minutes, the handsome man stuck his head in the bathroom, announced he was going to put the snow tires on my minivan (like i said, swingers), and left, shutting the door.

i think you know where this is going.

yup, he had unconsciously, instinctively (or so he would later claim) LOCKED THE DOOR. i discovered this about half an hour later when i emerged from the tub, bright red and shriveled as darth vader's skull (i like hot, hot baths), and pulled on the door knob.

i gotta say, those hooks and eyes really work. especially when you install the heavy-duty kind.

for those of you fortunate enough to live in warmer climes, i should note here that the proper, careful installation of snow tires takes a bit of time, and my husband is proper and careful when it comes to all things automotive. that means he not only lovingly mounted all four tires, he then drove the van to a gas station to check their pressure and add air, and finally took the van for an extended spin (city streets, highway) to make sure everything was working right.

so i was locked in my own bathroom for about, oh, two hours.

here is a partial list of things you can do in your bathroom for two hours:

• read several smithsonian magazines cover to cover, even those teeny tiny ads in the back
  
• pee
  
• clean the sink
  
• pee
  
• clean the toilet
  
• clean the tub
  
• look far too long and closely at your pores
  
• pee
  
• formulate an elaborate escape plan involving the bathroom's lone window, the snow drift outside for cushioning, your polar fleece robe for modesty, and your neighbors' gracious and bemused welcome
  

fortunately, before i performed my birdman of alcatraz impression, the handsome man finally returned. i heard him come in the back door, and i started calling frantically (but softly! don't wake the baby!) for release.

me: "charlie! charlieeee!"

him: (pause) "where are you?"

me: "in the bathroom!"

him: "still?!"

me: "i'm locked in! you locked me in!"

freedom, reunion, apologies and chuckles ensued.

and maybe a little less freakiness on my part, whether from wisdom or just from sheer fatigue after all that vigilance. i realized i gotta pace myself and save enough energy for the bullies, braces, boys and other horrors yet to come.

a nice, hot bath should help.

call mensa

i try not to brag about my kidlets, really i do. but yesterday, thing one did something that makes me think she just might be gifted. 

i'd served the gals each a piece of birthday cake (vegan AND tasty, thank you very much), then ducked downstairs to move the laundry mountain a few feet. when i came back to the kitchen, i saw that josie had managed to remove every molecule of pink frosting on her piece with surgical precision, leaving the cake/frosting vehicle/brown junk completely intact.

it was a thing of beauty. i was so proud. even i, the frosting lover of all time, could not have done such a good job, and i told her so. (praise your children when they do something right! the books say.) it warms a mother's heart.

bird balls

jesus, the birds are fat this winter.

we have four bird houses on our garage, so we have a little condo complex going out there. right now, i can see three birds perched on the roofs and one peaking out a "window" (hole in the wood). they are all perfectly spherical – they look like dirty tennis balls with beaks. how can they possibly fly?

of course, i'm sure they think similar uncharitable thoughts about me when i emerge from my dwelling.

goooood morning

here's a real eye-opener: being barfed on by both kids.

it's 8:46 on saturday morning, and i'm already exhausted.

i have made an important discovery

and i feel i would be remiss as a human being if i did not share it with the world.

it is hershey's special dark cocoa.

now, i am normally a milk chocolate kind of gal. but this stuff makes awesome cakes and cupcakes, and freakishly good hot cocoa. see for yourself:

freakishly good hot cocoa

• 1 c milk (or soy milk)
  
• 2 T sugar
  
• 2 T hershey's special dark cocoa
  
• dash salt
  
• 1/4 t vanilla

1. heat the milk as much as you like (i prefer it just this side of undrinkably hot)
   
2. mix the sugar, cocoa and salt
   
3. add a bit of the milk to the cocoa mix and stir to make a paste
   
4. add the rest of the milk and the vanilla; stir well
   
5. pour the cocoa through a strainer into a mug
   
6. sip
   
7. drift off to your happy place
   

waiting, waiting

i'm a-feared.

yesterday was my birthday; i turned 43. and now i'm waiting, waiting, waiting for something scary to happen to my carcass.

it's not the milestone years i fear – it's the off-brands. like 28, when i suddenly developed back fat. or 32, when my ass fell, like, 2 inches overnight. or the year i discovered that my cloven hooves are not normal and i have bunions and hammer toes (bye bye, pretty shoes). on one birthday, swear to god, a friend plucked my first gray hair from my head and waved it gleefully at me.

so now i'm waiting to see what else might bag, sag or just plain fall off.

shoot me, cupid – just shoot me

last week, the handsome man switched the knobs on our bedroom door and the basement door. the basement door knob has a push-button lock in it, and the handsome man thought that moving it to our bedroom would give us more privacy for amore.

except thing one just went in our room, pushed the button, came out, and pulled the door shut.

the handsome man is now downstairs collecting tools to take the door knob apart. and i am heading to the bathtub ALONE. now that's amore.

imaginary band names

back in my teens and 20s, i had a long run of dating musicians. consequently, i own some horrendous mix tapes, i can carry a bass amp as big as me, and i've had occasion to dream up lots of potential band names.

since then, band name ideas have also percolated up from funny things said by friends, the handsome man, and things one and two.

so this is for the kids out there: feel free to crib one of these for your next band. just say nice things about me when you make the cover of rolling stone.

♪beat cancel

♪snot on my arm

♪sex coma

to say up yours, please press 2

i've had occasion during the past couple of days to be on the phone with customer service reps of various companies (charles schwab, qwest) in various far-flung locales (phoenix, salt lake city).

at the end of every conversation, each one of them has cheerfully inquired, "so, how's the weather there in minneapolis?" and it's not like they're asking in a nice way; the smug snickering is barely disguised in their voices.

to which i have responded in an equally cheerful voice, "why, it sucks! thank you for asking."

oh. and now it's snowing. again. keeel me.

a two-paper-gown day

my mom is visiting for a week, so what kind of wild fun are we having?

we went to target.

we went to ikea.

we went to the grocery store.

and today while my mom watched the kidlets, i had not one but two doctors poke and prod my naked person: the annual spelunking by my ob/gyn, and the yearly mole patrol by my dermatologist.

the really sad part is, sitting in a paper gown reading old issues of people magazine is the closest i get to a spa anymore, and i really liked it. fortunately, i have a mammogram in a couple weeks. party on!

nutter butter

can you name a serious, potentially fatal disease that affects 1 out of 8 women? now let me make it harder: can you name one other than breast cancer?

it's postpartum depression.

and i ain't talking about the baby blues. i'm talking about can't eat, can't sleep, can't stop sobbing, can't stop obsessing, can't stop shaking. i'm talking about being unable to get dressed, unable to care for your children, unable to function. for weeks, for months.

i slipped into ppd (as the cool kids call it) after i had my second child. unlike most women who get ppd, i didn't develop symptoms soon after birth; instead, i went slowly downhill until the baby was 9 months old, at which point i had become unrecognizable to myself and others. if it hadn't been for the intervention of my two best friends and my mother, i am pretty sure i would have ended up in the hospital – and that's the best case scenario.

i got therapy. i got drugs. i got better. i hope i never again encounter the crazy stranger i was during those months.

other women have not been so lucky. they stumble along in silent pain, trying to "get over it." a few develop postpartum psychosis. melanie blocker stokes, a pharmacueticals sales manager, threw herself from a 12-story window when her baby was not quite 4 months old. dr. suzanne killinger-johnson, a psychologist, leapt in front of a subway train while carrying her infant son.

ppd is a disease. it is a toxic chemical stew that curdles your brain. it doesn't mean you don't love your baby. it doesn't mean you aren't grateful to be a mom. it means that your mind has come lose from its moorings and splintered on the rocks.

that's why this whole "happiest time of your life" bullshit myth has to be put down for good, or women will continue to suffer in guilty, fearful silence, dragging their families down with them when they go completely nutter.

real mommies know how terrifying a newborn is if you've never been around one before. real mommies know why sleep deprivation is used to torture prisoners. real mommies know that taking zoloft is not a sign of weakness; it's using medicine to treat a medical condition. (would you try to pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you had diabetes? kidney failure?)

i am a real mommy. i love my babies without limits, but i don't pretend it's easy or fun all the time. every stage is not a blessing; some of them are goddamned annoying, and some of them can kill you.

thank god mommies tend to run in packs. we need the protection and support of the herd. we need our friends to tell us what to expect when you're expecting is shit. we need our aunts to tell us they wanted to throw our cousins through a plate glass window when they were kids. we need our own mommies to sit in front of us and make us eat something, then tell us to go lie down and take a nap, no arguments.

i try to keep a closer eye on my herd since i've had ppd. you keep an eye on yours, too, ok?

overhead in the playroom

as i've discovered the big, bloggy world out there, i've noticed there are quite a few "overheard in..." blogs (overheard in new york, in minneapolis, in chicago, in ann arbor, and so on).

not to be outdone, i am starting "overheard in the playroom" with this exchange:

4-year-old to sister: "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

2-year-old: (pause to consider) "orange and pink!"

that's my girl.